Human Structure and Function 1   

    Study guide for the first exam:
Blue denotes material from Medical Physiology
 

Introduction:
What is the difference between anatomy and physiology?
How is the human body organized (beginning with atoms)?
What is homeostasis?
What are the parts that make  up a feedback loop?
What is a negative feedback loop? A positive feedback loop?  Can you give examples of each?
How are disease and homeostasis related? What is a sign? What is a symptom? Give an example of each.

Chemistry:
What is an atom? What is the significance of the number of electrons in the outer most orbital (shell) of an atom?
What is an element? Be able to recognize all of the chemical symbols given in class.
What is an isotope? How can it be used in medicine?
Where is energy stored in a molecule?
What is a molecule? A compound? Describe how covalent, ionic and hydrogen bonds are formed and how they function.
What is meant when we say a molecule is polar? Nonpolar? Hydrophilic? Hydrophobic?
What are endergonic or endothermic chemical reactions? What are exergonic or exothermic reactions?
Be able to recognize the general formulas for synthesis, decomposition, and exchange reactions. What is a reversible reaction?
What characterizes an organic compound? An inorganic compound? What is pH? Acids? Bases?
How do buffer systems help to maintain pH balance in the body?
What is a macromolecule? A polymer? A monomer?
What is a carbohydrate? Give the general chemical formula for carbohydrates. What monomers make up complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides)?
How are sugars used in the body?
What is the word ending that signifies a sugar?
What are lipids? How do they differ from carbohydrates? Are they typically polar or nonpolar?
What is an unsaturated fatty acid? A saturated fatty acid? What is the difference between cis- and trans- fatty acids? What are omega-3 or omega-6 fatty acids? Why are these beneficial to the body?
What is a phospholipid? What is meant by an amphipathic molecule? What is a glycolipid?
Where and how is cholesterol used in the body? What is a steroid molecule?
What are eicosanoids?
What elements are found in proteins? Especially, what element is always found in proteins that is not found in carbohydrates or lipids?
How do proteins function in the body? Why is the shape of a protein so important? How many amino acids are used in the human body? What is the basic structure of an amino acid? What is meant by the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure of proteins?
How are proteins affected by changes in pH,  and salt concentration or ionic strength?
What is a catalyst? An enzyme? A cofactor?  A coenzyme? Why do we need to take in only small amounts of vitamins?
What suffix indicates a substance is an enzyme?
What are glycoproteins? Proteoglycans?
What elements are found in nucleic acids. List three differences between DNA and RNA. What are the monomers that make up nucleic acid, and what three parts make up those monomers?
Why is Adenosine triphosphate so important to cells?

Cells:
What is cell theory?
What is the composition of the plasma membrane? What is meant by the fact it is selectively permeable?
What is the glycocalyx of a cell? How does it function?
What role does cholesterol play in the cell membrane?
How do proteins function in the cell membrane?
What is the function of tight junctions?
What are desmosomes? How are they structured, and how do they function?
What are gap junctions, and how do they function in cell to cell communication?
What are cellular adhesion molecules?
How do proteins function in cell membranes? What substances can pass through membranes? How do other substances enter and leave the cell ?  What factors determine which substances can pass through the membrane?
What is a lipid raft?
How do passive and active transport processes differ?  How does diffusion occur, and what factors will influence the rate of diffusion?
What is osmosis? What happens when cells are placed in isotonic, hypertonic and hypotonic solutions?
What are aquaporins? Why does osmosis occur faster than solute diffusion?
What is facilitated diffusion? What are saturation limits in regards to facilitated diffusion?
What active transport? What is countertransport? Cotransport or symport? Where is the energy used in cotransport?
Be able to define or describe: vesicular transport, endocytosis, exocytosis, pinocytosis, phagocytosis, receptor-mediated endocytosis?  What are v-SNARES and t-SNAREs? What is clathrin?  What is transcytosis? What is membrane flow and what effect does it have on the functioning of the cell?
What is the cytoplasm? What is the cytosol?
Be able to give the structure and functions of ribosomes, proteasomes, rough endoplasmic reticulum, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, vesicles, lysosomes (primary and secondary), peroxisomes, mitochondria, centrosomes and centrioles, flagella and cilia, microfilaments, intermediate filaments, microtubules (molecular motors), cell inclusions, nucleus, nucleolus, nuclear membrane.
Describe what occurs during each phase of the cell cycle. What is a centromere? A kinetochore? What role do the centrioles play?
What is the difference between mitosis and cytokinesis?
What is meant by cell differentiation? What are stem cells?
How many times can a cell divide?
What is a telomere, and what does it do?
What is apoptosis?
What are growth factors, and how do they affect cell division?
What is contact inhibition?
What is the difference between a benign and a malignant tumor?
What do oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes do?
What can cause a cell to lose control over cell division?
What is homeostasis? What aspects of the internal environment of the body are maintained within narrow limits? How does a person's ability to maintain homeostasis vary over its lifetime?
What factors regulate or influence enzyme activity?
What is negative feedback? What is positive feedback?  Feedforward and what does it do? Can you give examples of all three?
What are the components of a negative feedback system ?
What is the difference between equilibrium and steady state as far as cells are concerned?
What are gap junctions? How do they function in tissues such as heart muscle? In growth and differentiation of cells?
What is meant by paracrine signaling? Autocrine signaling? (Do not get bogged down in the examples and miss the general point.)
The two major regulators of homeostasis in the body are the endocrine system and the nervous system. How does each function? Where do they overlap?
What is signal transduction? What is meant by a first messenger? A second messenger?
Skim pages 11-17 to answer:
Understand how G proteins function in the cell in a general way. ( look at figures 1.8  and 1.9) Why are they called G proteins?
What do ion channel-linked proteins do?
Does a certain messenger elicit the same response in every cell of the body?
Recognize that cyclicAMP is an important second messenger in all cells, and cyclicGMP is used by many. How is calcium used in cells as a second messenger? (how is positive feedback involved here?)
How do lipid soluble hormones affect cell functioning?
What are ion channels? What is the difference between a gated ion channel and a nongated (leakage) channel? What can open a gated channel?
What is a common method of turning proteins "on" and "off" in a cell?
How can the binding of a ligand to a receptor result in the amplification of the signal inside the cell?


Chapter 2:
Be able to describe the structure of the plasma membrane. What roles do proteins play in the functioning of this membrane?
What does cholesterol do?
What is the difference between phagocytosis and endocytosis?
How does fluid-phase endocytosis (pinocytosis) differ from receptor-mediated endocytosis?
What factors influence diffusion? You do not need to memorize the formulas.
What happens to the rate of diffusion in facilitated diffusion as the number of solute molecules increases?
What are the characteristics of equilibrating carrier-mediated transport systems?
What are ion channels? We will be dealing with gated- channels later.
What is primary active transport? What effect does digitalis have?
What type of ATPase is found in mitochondria, and how is it different from the other pumps mentioned in your boo?
What is secondary active transport? What are symport systems? Antiport systems
What is meant by and electroneutral system? An electrogenic system?
What function do tight junctions have regarding plasma membrane proteins in epithelial cells (transcellular transport)?
What is osmosis? Why are some cells more susceptible to changes in solute concentration than others? What is the driving force for the movement of water in osmosis? Which would have the greater osmotic pressure - a 1 molar solution of glucose or 1 molar solution of sodium chloride?
How do tonicity and osmolality differ?
How does a cell maintain the resting membrane potential?
What is meant by electrochemical potential, and how does it affect the movement of ions across the plasma membrane?

Cellular Respiration:
What is metabolism? catabolism? anabolism?
What is a cofactor? A coenzyme? What does the body use to make coenzymes, and how much of these substances do we need?
What is the "energy currency" of the cell? Why?
Express cellular respiration as a chemical formula.
What are the three (four) steps of cellular respiration? Which take place in the cytosol, and which occur in the mitochondria?
What is a Redox reaction?
How does a substance become reduced? Oxidized? In a cell, can one occur without the other?
What do NAD⁺ and FAD do in cellular respiration?
Where is oxygen used in cellular respiration?
What is oxygen debt? What substance is formed if oxygen is in short supply?
Glycolysis starts with a six carbon glucose molecule. What is the end product of glycolysis? Does glycolysis by itself require oxygen? How much energy is produced from one molecule of glucose by glycolysis alone?
What are the products of the Krebs or Citric acid cycle?  Why is this called a cycle?
How does the electron transport chain work? What are cytochromes? what happens here when no oxygen is present?
What is the energy that is released during oxidative phosphorylation used for? What form does wasted energy take?
What is chemiosmosis? Where does it take place? What does the F-ATPase used here do?
What substances can be broken down to obtain energy by cellular respiration?
Which is more efficient: glycolysis (fermentation) alone or the entire process of cellular respiration?  

END EXAM 1