BiologyCode 9700
Cells as the basic units of living organisms
What this topic asks you to be able to do
- recognise the organelles and other structures that eukaryotic cells contain, and outline the structure and job of each, limited to: nucleus, nucleolus and nuclear envelope, cell surface membrane, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, rough endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes (80S ones in the cytoplasm, 70S ones in mitochondria and chloroplasts), Golgi body (also called the Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex), mitochondria (including the small circular DNA they hold), lysosomes, microtubules and centrioles, microvilli, cilia, chloroplasts (including the small circular DNA they hold), cell wall, plasmodesmata, and the tonoplast and large permanent vacuole of plant cells
- describe and interpret, for typical plant and animal cells, photomicrographs, electron micrographs and drawings
- compare how typical plant and animal cells are built
- state that cells power energy-demanding processes using ATP made by respiration
- outline the main structural features of a prokaryotic cell, taking a typical bacterium as the model, including: it is unicellular, is usually 1–5 µm across, has cell walls made of peptidoglycan, has circular DNA and 70S ribosomes, and has no organelles enclosed by a double membrane
- compare how a prokaryotic cell, as seen in a typical bacterium, is built against typical plant and animal eukaryotic cells
- state that every virus is a non-cellular entity whose core is nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA, enclosed by a protein capsid, and that certain viruses carry an outer envelope built from phospholipids