General Biology 2

• Processes compared and contrasted in plants and animals


  • Reproduction
  • Development
  • Nutrition
  • Gas exchange
  • Transport/circulation
  • Regulation of body fluids
  • Chemical and nervous control
  • Immune systems
  • Sensory and motor mechanisms
• Organisms maintain steady internal conditions (e.g., temperature regulation, osmotic balance and glucose levels) that possess various structures and processes
• Organismal biology


  The study of living organisms, including their structure, function, behavior, and evolution
• Organismal biology


  • Interdisciplinary field that draws on principles from various areas of biology, including genetics, ecology, physiology, anatomy, and evolution
  • Incorporates other disciplines, such as geology, chemistry, and physics, to understand the interactions between organisms and their environment
• Animal morphoanatomy


  Aims to understand how morphological form is related to function in the broadest sense
• Goals of animal morphoanatomy


  1. Understand whether different body forms and physical structures match in a logical way with the functions they appear well suited for, and whether such matching makes sense in an evolutionary and ecological context

  2. Understand how basic functions, such as locomotion, occur by examining lower-level components, such as muscles, bones, and heart tissue
• Animal morphoanatomy is a comparative subject that discusses both the morphology and physiology of functional systems in various animals, and their relationships with the animal's way of life and phylogeny
• Nearly 1.5 million species of animals have been described, but 95% of them are invertebrates, or animals without backbones
• Properties that distinguish the body plans of animals


  • Symmetry
  • Body cavities
  • Segmentation
• Body symmetry


  The arrangement of the body parts of animals
• Types of body symmetry


  • Radial symmetry
  • Bilateral symmetry
• Radial symmetry


  Animals have a cylindrical body composed of similar parts that are arranged in a circular fashion around a central axis
• Bilateral symmetry


  Animals have a body composed of mirror images when an imaginary line is drawn down a single axis
• Cephalization


  The concentration of sense organs and nervous tissue at the leading end of the body (anterior) to form a "head"
• Body cavities


  The spaces within the body of animals
• Types of body cavities


  • Acoelomate (no body cavities)
  • Pseudocoelomate (false coelom)
  • Coelomate (true body cavity)
• Advantages of having a body cavity


  • Circulation - Fluids that move within the body cavity can serve the function of a circulatory system
  • Movement - Fluid in the body cavity makes the animal's body rigid, increasing the effectiveness of muscular contractions
  • Organ function - The coelomic space protects internal organs from being squished and allows for the development of other organ systems
• Segmentation


  The division of the body into repeating segments
• Importance of segmentation


  • Growth of an organism was simplified by repeating units
  • Allowed for specialization of different segments for different functions, especially locomotion
  • Underlies the body plan of all coelomates
• Commonly used terms to define relative positions of structures


  • Anterior
  • Posterior
  • Dorsal
  • Ventral
  • Superior
  • Inferior
  • Medial
  • Lateral
  • Proximal
  • Distal
• Anterior


  Refers to the front or head end of an organism
• Posterior


  Refers to the back or tail end of an organism
• Dorsal


  Refers to the back or upper side of an organism
• Ventral


  Refers to the belly or lower side of an organism
• Superior


  Indicates a structure that is positioned above or higher in relation to another structure
• Inferior


  Indicates a structure that is positioned below or lower in relation to another structure
• Medial


  Refers to the middle or midline of an organism, describes a structure that is closer to the midline
• Lateral


  Refers to the side of an organism or a structure that is away from the midline
• Proximal


  Describes a structure that is closer to the point of attachment or the center of the body
• Distal


  Describes a structure that is farther away from the point of attachment or the center of the body
• Recombinant DNA


  The process of combining DNA from different sources to create new genetic combinations

  
• This process should result in an effective extraction that yields DNA with good quantity and quality, and must be free from contamination of RNA and proteins
• Outline of processes involved in Genetic Engineering

  1. DNA isolation

  2. Gene cloning

  3. Gene design

  4. Transformation

  5. Plant breeding

  
• Gene cloning


  Involves engineering the gene to function in a different creature by separating the gene with enzymes and substituting certain portions

  
• Transformation


  A new gene (transgene) is carried into the nucleus of a plant cell during the transformation process, where it inserts into a chromosome and is passed on to offspring
• Plant breeding


  The science of modifying plant species through pollination, genetic engineering, and selection of progeny in order to produce new and improved genotypes and phenotypes of plants with desired properties
• Applications of Recombinant DNA

  • Agriculture
  • Environment
  • Medicine
• Transgenic plants


  • Herbicides-resistant soybeans
• Transgenic animals


  • Transgenic salmon
• Utilizing cDNA


  Degradation of oil spill