Cells, More Than Just Mitochondria?
Quick question to bump your brain cells:
70 trillion is:
a) The current US national debt?
b) The number of times you’ve heard Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is you”?
c) The number of dollars in Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO) checking account?
d) The number of cells in a typical adult?
As this is a bodies blog, you know the answer is, of course, (d).
And although only around half of these cells are human (the rest are yikes, bacterial) that’s still 35 trillion tiny human building blocks it would be good to know a little more about.
Why?
Because almost any human ailment we can name is either caused by cells misbehaving or essential cells being damaged or destroyed.
Still need a for instance? Try these …
Strokes and Alzheimer’s disease? Nerve cells, check.
Sickle cell disease? Red blood cells, check.
Rheumatoid arthritis? Immune system cells, check
Diabetes? Pancreas, kidney, blood vessel cells, to name just a few, check
Cancer? Any and every type of cell, check, check, check
Phew, I’m assuming that if you’re still reading it means you’re intrigued enough to want to know more so let’s look at a cell. For that we’re going to need a microscope to help us take a peek and the first thing we’ll see through that eyepiece is the cell membrane
Picture this - a 10’ wall with small openings, trampolines and trees along both of its sides. Perhaps we can squeeze, bounce or climb our way across this wall or maybe we’ll be too big, too old or just too cautious to use these various means and crossing the wall will be impossible
Well, congratulations, that’s pretty much all that’s needed to understand how our cell membranes operate. Using the biological equivalent of holes, bouncy things and shrubs, our cells can usually move useful things in and out of the cell whilst keeping many potentially dangerous things outside of our cells.
Look inside the cell and wow, there’s quite the hubbub. In fact, a great way to understand how cells work is to think of them like our favorite, bustling city.
I’m no town planner but can we agree that all successful cities will share the following characteristics
….. a “city hall”, the location where all the important decision-making people and key legal documents are housed?
The “city hall” of every cell is its nucleus. Here all those genes, the protein recipes essential for the creation and running of individual cells and whole humans, are stored and acted upon. Close down city hall and the refuse will pile up, the parks will lock their gates, teachers won’t teach and bit by bit, the city will cease to function. It’s the same for a cell – damage other parts of a cell and it may well survive, damage the nucleus and our cell is doomed.
….. power plants for both people and companies to survive and thrive?
Cells produce energy through mitochondria, tiny cellular power plants and they just might be the most important thing you’ve never heard of as …..
…. they’re the reason we breathe.
Breath in and mitochondria use that oxygen to convert our burger into energy the body can use. But just like coal-fired power plants, mitochondria spew out carbon dioxide waste. Where power plants send it into the atmosphere using their chimneys, our mitochondria dispose of carbon dioxide by having the blood collect it from our cells and then transport it to the lungs where we breath it out.
….. businesses, producers of goods needed inside the city and beyond?
We all know just where to go to get that particular treat to make the treadmill tyranny worth it. Maybe it’s a salted caramel muffin, maybe it’s an organic kale smoothie (really??) but imagine fame of our favored treat shop has spread beyond the boundaries of our town and these treats are being sent out to exercisers in cities all over the country,
We have cells like these successful treats shops that in addition to making products for their own needs, are producing goods that need to be sent out to other cities, cells!
Hormones like estrogen and testosterone are a great example of this as they’re used by almost every cell in the body but are really only made in significant amounts in the gonads (ovaries in females and testes in males).
So, to get these hormones to where they’re needed, our cells have:
….. UPS stores and transport networks?
Yes really.
Inside our cells are tiny equivalents of UPS offices where things like hormones go to be wrapped up into little packages called vesicles before being moved across the cell membrane and into the blood – the transport network that will take the vesicles and the hormones inside them to their final destination, other cells!
….. and finally, its own unique appeal?
Asked to choose our favorite city for shopping, it’ll probably be different to our choice for best nightlife and different again to our choice for best cultural heritage.
Well, the 35 trillion human cells mentioned at the beginning divide into around about 200 different types.
Don’t panic, we’re not going there!
But here’s a taste of the particular talents of some our cells:
Running on that treadmill or moving that post-workout, reward muffin into our mouth and then through our intestines, we’re only able to do these things because of the numerous muscle cells making up our muscles, cells whose entire, selfless existence is devoted to moving body parts.
However, a very different service is provided by epithelial cells in the skin which create a physical barrier so that most things can’t enter or exit our body across our skin.
For fun, rub a garlic clove on the underside of your foot and see how long it is before you can taste it.
The garlic that is, not your foot!
Garlic’s an unusual thing because it can cross our skin, before moving into our blood and being transported to our lungs. There, we breathe it out and ….. taste it!
Red blood cells travel endlessly around the body picking up and dropping off oxygen and carbon dioxide. So dedicated are they to their task that by the time a red blood cell’s 120 day life is done, it’s likely to have travelled around the entire body a whopping 200,000 times
And what about our internal telecoms system, the nerve cells that make up our brain and spinal cord. The work of these amazing cells is sending electrical signals, some of them at over 300mph - vital for us to have the fantastic control over our movements that allows at least some of us to text at 50 words per minute!
Enjoyed learning a little more and hopefully coming to appreciate a whole lot more, these unsung heroes?
Wondering about some of the other 190+ we didn’t discuss like stem cells, sperm cells or white cells?
Intrigued by something cell-related that I haven’t mentioned?
Let me know via the comments section below or send me an email and we’ll see if we can get them into a blog post soon
