Molecular Biology of the Cell - 2002 by Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts,

and Peter Walter

In most animal cells, M phase takes only about an houra small fraction of the total cell-cycle time, which often lasts 1224 hours. The rest of the cycle is occupied by interphase. Under the microscope, interphase appears as a deceptively uneventful interlude, in which the cell simply continues to grow in size. Other techniques, however, reveal that interphase is actually a busy time for a proliferating cell, during which elaborate preparations for cell division are occurring in a tightly ordered sequence. Two critical preparatory events that are completed during interphase are DNA replication and duplication of the centrosome.

Molecular Biology of the Cell - 2002 by Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, and Peter Walter

Chloroplasts carry out their energy interconversions by chemiosmotic mechanisms in much the same way that mitochondria do. Although much larger, they are organized on the same principles. They have a highly permeable outer membrane; a much less permeable inner membrane, in which membrane transport proteins are embedded; and a narrow intermembrane space in between. Together, these membranes form the chloroplast envelope. The inner membrane surrounds a large space called the stroma, which is analogous to the mitochondrial matrix and contains many metabolic enzymes. Like the mitochondrion, the chloroplast has its own genome and genetic system. The stroma therefore also contains a special set of ribosomes, RNAs, and the chloroplast DNA.

Molecular Biology of the Cell - 2002 by Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, and Peter Walter

Unicellular organisms tend to grow and divide as fast as they can, and their rate of proliferation depends largely on the availability of nutrients in the environment. The cells of a multicellular organism, however, divide only when more cells are needed by the organism. Thus, for an animal cell to proliferate, nutrients are not enough. It must also receive stimulatory extracellular signals, in the form of mitogens, from other cells, usually its neighbors. Mitogens act to overcome intracellular braking mechanisms that block progress through the cell cycle.

Molecular Biology of the Cell - 2002 by Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, and Peter Walter

When a cell undergoes mitosis, both of the resulting daughter cells receive a precise copy of the mother cell's genome. Yet those daughters will often have different specialized fates, and, at some point, they or their progeny must acquire different characters. In some cases, the two sister cells are born different as a result of an asymmetric cell division, in which some significant set of molecules is divided unequally between the two daughter cells at the time of division. This asymmetrically segregated molecule (or set of molecules) then acts as a determinant for one of the cell fates by directly or indirectly altering the pattern of gene expression within the daughter cell that receives it.

Molecular Biology of the Cell - 2002 by Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, and Peter Walter

Differences between cells in an embryo arise in various ways. Sister cells can be born different, as a result of an asymmetric cell division. Alternatively, cells that are born similar can become different through a competitive interaction with one another, as in lateral inhibition. Or a group of initially similar cells may receive different exposures to inductive signals from cells outside the group; long-range inducers with graded effects, called morphogens, can organize a complex pattern. Through cell memory, such transient signals can have a lasting effect on the internal state of a cell, causing it, for example, to become determined for specific fate. In these ways, sequences of simple signals acting at different times and places in growing cell arrays give rise to the intricate and varied multicellular organisms that fill the world around us.