inventory of cell components

Consult the Protistiary entry on inventories of cell organelles

There are several reasons to develop an understanding of the components within protistan cells.

to understand how the cell works (the functioning of the cell).

to establish homologs among different cell lines as a part of the process by which the overall tree of eukaryotic evolution can be assembled.

to understand the range of diversity of form, organization and function within eukaryotic cells. Many major advances in our understanding in cell biology have been achieved through an exploration of the biology of protists. Only a tiny part of the full scope of cellular expression has been explored and documented.

Part 1: Review and update the information already compiled in a draft catalog of cell components

Is the structure of the existing catalog accurate?

Is it complete, are all organelles included?

Are all of the variant expressions included?

Your task is to help fuill in the gaps. This task will largely involve a discussion to build up familiarity with the issues. We will then break into several groups, and each group will focus on a particular cellular feature. Groups will need to ask Faculty for assistance in exploring the literature, and will need to explore the primary literature (preferably to reviews). This process will lead to a review of the draft catalog, and this review will lead to the completion of the second part of this exercise. At the same time, exemplary images will need to be identified for the third part of the exercise. Please retain details of all references consulted and designate one person to oversee the compilation of information. The information found needs to be entered into the online Table, and cross links made to the references.

Part 2: Document the diversity of expression in one or more organelles.

A draft structure for mitochondria has already been put together;however, it is not complete. There is a page with all forms and also pages with each of the variant forms that have been documented. A matrix key has been developed using X:ID on-line key-building tools to assist in browsing through this information.

a) Review this draft structure for mitochondria - evaluate what is good and bad. Discuss and make changes.

b) Select an undocumented or poorly documented cell component (such as plastids, extrusomes, dictyosomes), conduct research using the web and primary literature to understand the range of expression across all protists, develop a plan of what has to be covered, and collect images and descriptions. Understand copyright limitations. Our understanding is that the use of any material without change is a violation of intellectual property rights, but the selection of a fragment and its reworking into a new original form creates a new original work to which copyright applies. Following scientific tradition and to avoid claims of plagiarism, the source of any materials used should be fully credited. We will need to agree upon and set document standards with regard to image size, layout and so on.

c) Visit the uBio web site (http://www.ubio.org) and under services look for X:ID. You will want to use the builder, save a copy of the resulting LIF file within your local environment, and eventually assign to the Protistiary environment. Again, we will probably need to develop a document about the appropriate protocols.

 

Part 3: Make an inventory for an organism that is represented in the micro*graph environment.

We have begun to compile a web repository for research electron micrographs. The purpose is to prevent these images being lost. The value of the content will be enhanced if we annotate the collections. One type of comment is a summary of the components of the cell, and perhaps the images in which they are best represented. It is likely that we cannot make a complete inventory until a three dimensional reconstruction is also completed.

We would like you to review the data on one species, create an inventory for that species, and prepare it as an explanatory document that will be accessed as supporting documentation through micro*graph and micro*scope.

micro*graph was set up to act as a repository of all images, and not just the pretty or publishable ones. Some 'species' that are included are not well fixed. Some of the taxa which could be used for this exercise are ....

We have yet to come up with a structure for disseminating these inventories.

Guide to working with micro*graph