Living cell

It is tempting to extend a person's life. But what is life in general, what is its secret? First of all, it is necessary to understand how the chemical reactions in which the living cell takes part are the basis of life.

To study a living cell, in most cases it must be destroyed: crush it in a mortar, treat it with salt solution or some other solvent, and then analyze the resulting solution, calling for help from physics and chemistry

To study a living cell, in most cases it must be destroyed: crush it in a mortar, treat it with salt solution or some other solvent, and then analyze the resulting solution, calling for help from physics and chemistry. But is it possible to be sure that by interfering roughly into the life of a living cell, we have not violated the very essence of life? And are we not studying the chemical processes of the deceased, and not the living organism, in this case? Many biologists even 50-60 years ago believed that it is enough to destroy a living cell, how the substances that are there will react with each other and everything that the scientist wanted to study will disappear. But fears were in vain.

In the late 19 and early 20 century it became known that you can "disassemble the body", preserving the vital functions of its parts. The organ, isolated from the body and placed in appropriate conditions, continued to live. Pieces of the liver or muscles are able to continue their life in artificial conditions. Biologists have learned to cultivate in the nutrient medium whole groups - colonies of living cells derived from organs. So the experimenters penetrated into the intimate sides of cell exchange. It turned out that the living cell can also be disassembled into separate units, for example, to isolate its mitochondria - the "power stations" of a living cell.

Why does the body allow such disassembly?

Resistance of a living cell is explained by two reasons. Scientists have found out that in cells there are almost no chemically active substances. If we take the nutrients and products of their transformations and mix everything in a single solution, then at the body temperature the vast majority of these products will remain unchanged. Such a mixture, if it is protected from microbes, can be stored for dozens of months, and perhaps even years; thus there will be few chemical reactions.

You already know that every living cell has a set of catalysts - specific accelerators of chemical reactions. These special protein substances are called enzymes. The presence of enzymes and allows the living cell to "work" without such strong reagents as sulfuric acid or phosphoric anhydride. If we simplify the essence of the matter a little, it turns out that there is a special enzyme for every single chemical reaction carried out in a living cell. Under certain conditions - a temperature in the range 0-400 C, the absence of potent chemicals - enzymes are stable. They can be isolated under mild chemical conditions, obtained in pure form, stored for a long time in the form of a dry powder and, with their help, to carry out the chemical reactions characteristic of a living cell.

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