Dead Cells

[monokekie]

Hey guys,

If a cell is dead, would you consider it as a chemical substance?

[shinny]

Well, you'd consider the individual pieces of debris it leaves behind as chemical substances. From the way I see it, a dead cell isn't really an entity in itself so you couldn't call it a chemical substance on its own. Seems more of an arbitrary tag to collectively name the left over pile of mush that remains once a cell does die.

[TrueLight]

mm exactly calling a 'cell' a substance ... is wrong ... substance is getting more micro

just look up the definition of the two

[monokekie]

I see, so I will just call them chemical material in dead/alive cells, thanks!

[TrueLight]

what r u trying to say?

just call it cell debris?
or degraded internal cellular protein/structures

[monokekie]

haha, TL,  that will surely be useful later on. I haven't covered that much yet, just up to Griffith's experiment about DNA properties
 

[TrueLight]

oh... i talked about that experiment for mol last yr ... about transformation experiment right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith's_experiment?

[monokekie]

Yes, its about the concept of Genetic Transformation =)

[TrueLight]

u learn that stuff in yr12?hmm dont remember..

[monokekie]

I am not in year 12.. I am a fresherman biomedical student .. hehe

[TrueLight]

oh yeah ... >.< i keep forgetting!!! sry lol

yes.. transformation... important...uptake of free dna from the outside of the bacteria to inside

and we just did that in last weeks prac with plasmids...

[shinny]

Dead cells are still cells .
Xylem, for example, are dead cells .

Ah yeh. Didn't think about cells such as those on the skin which maintain their structure after death. Was more thinking in the direction of a necrotic type of death.

[TrueLight]

yeah if a cell is dead in humans.. non functional..... xylem..pfft plants ... then it is usually phagocytosed and digested and yeah recycled....
debris as in i was thinking more about chopped up cells... anyway thats what we call it in the lab..like when you centrifuge it and all the cell wall and other proteins are seperated from dna or wateva

[shinny]

Dead cells are still cells .
Xylem, for example, are dead cells .

Ah yeh. Didn't think about cells such as those on the skin which maintain their structure after death. Was more thinking in the direction of a necrotic type of death.

A 'dead' cell's parts are still salvaged too, so it's not really "debris" or whatever.
Most of the contents get recycled, I'm pretty sure.

Yeh, it'd get phagocytosed by macrophages and whatnot, but obviously once it's at that stage, it's way beyond having any relationship to its previous living state. I was more referring to the immediate result.

[TrueLight]

lol yeah i remembered because we did it today!