The Cell: The Nucleus and the Nucleolus

I was having a really difficult time trying to figure out a way to present this. The nucleus is complicated. It has a separate membrane, called the nuclear envelope, and has nuclear pores which move ribosomes into and out of the nucleolus, etc., etc... along with other structures that may or may not be important to you. From my experience, what its function is is more important than the finite details of its structure.

The nucleus is the castle of the cell. This is the place where all the decisions are made. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or the genes of the cell are in that castle. This DNA tells the cell what it will be, the function of its parts, and when and how often it will divide. "You will be a skin cell and you will divide in 2 weeks to make more skin cells. The ruler has spoken!" 


Some cells, such as muscle cells have to produce a lot of ATP (cell energy), where other cells do not. This is also determined by the nucleus. The head honchos determine what work needs to be done in the city in order to thrive. This is also known as cellular metabolism. Various enzymes are made within the nucleus to allow for metabolism to occur. I will be talking about the production of ATP when I discuss the mitochondria. That will be a doozy of a topic!

DNA is a double stranded helix of groups of proteins that hold all the information of the cell. It is the "motherboard" if you will. It is the instructions for everything that goes on in the cell. Most cells only have 1 nucleus. However, some muscle cells have 2! And another little fun fact for the day: red blood cells...the cells that carry oxygen to all the other cells in your body are anucleated! This means that once the red blood cell matures, the nucleus is removed. It is a flat disc that is more malleable and can hold more oxygen when the nucleus is gone. Pretty dang cool if you ask me!


 Within the nucleus, is the nucleolus (that red thing in the purple sphere at the beginning of this post). The job of the nucleolus is to synthesize (make) ribosomes. The nucleolus has transcription ribonucleic acid (RNA) that takes apart a split of DNA, and makes a copy of it. 


Ribosomal RNA then makes a ribosome to carry that set of instructions to another part of the cell. So ribosomes are clumps of informational protein. The ribosome is then read and information is transferred into function for another part of the cell. 


So, to put this is into our theoretical city...We have the king ruling his land. He says how the city should behave and look like (geez...sounds more like dictator than a king). He gives speeches in the press-corps room (nucleolus...cuz...ya know...this is the 21st century) in which the press-corps transcribes the information (function of the nucleolus, tRNA) and make media (ribosomes) to be spread throughout the city. 

Now, I hope this made sense. I know it is a lot and because I do not want to make a textbook describing the complete functions of DNA and RNA, I will leave it here. There is obviously whole career paths that are dedicated specifically to the study of this very part of the cell. Genetics and Genomics is extremely complicated and WAY above my pay grade. 

Feel free to message me and say, "Liz, WTF were you talking about!" and I will try again. If there is something you would like to add, please share in the comments.  Thank you for reading.

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