The Earth is dying and Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, has asked you to be the scienti

Question

The Earth is dying and Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, has asked you to be the scientific officer on a team of astronauts tasked with finding a new planet for humanity. You will ride SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to orbit. The pilot on your team will then dock the Dragon spacecraft with the space station and then take the space station out of orbit and towards the planet with the best hope for humanity. Unfortunately, there are no worm holes to get you to the planet quickly, so you will need to take the ‘long way round’. All team members have been placed in stasis units to keep them alive during the trip. The stasis technology is very complicated but one of the components of the proprietary stasis solution inhibits the depolymerization of the actin cytoskeleton. It is widely accepted that preventing collapse of the actin cytoskeleton promotes longevity and slows down the aging process. After 1000 years in space you are awakened by the ship’s computer because you have reached your destination. After the team reassembles you all realize that one of your team members has aged a lot more than the rest of you. As the scientific officer you are asked to figure out what happened. You inspect the faulty stasis chamber and notice that the temperature sensor on the ion supply chamber has failed allowing it to get too cold.

You remember from chemistry class that temperature and pH are inversely correlated and that ions precipitate out of solution at high pH. What do you think happened?

A. There was not enough Mg2+ present in the stasis solution due to precipitation at elevated pH, which resulted in too much actin depolymerization.

B. The cold temperature means there wasn’t enough G actin to cause actin polymerization.

C. The temperature sensitive ABC transporter stopped working which inhibited the transport of actin.

D. The voltage sensitive sodium channel had no ions to pass leading to actin depolymerization.

Explanation / Answer

Ans :- A. There was not enough Mg2+ present in the stasis solution due to precipitation at elevated pH,which resulted in too much actin depolymerization.

Mg2+ ions are required for actin polymerization. As temperature fell in the stasis chamberbdue to technichal error, pH increased. This caused the Mg2+ ions to precipitate due to low ionic strength of the solution.

Not B. because G-actin is not temperature dependent.

Not C. because ABC transporters are not temperature sensitive.

Not D. Because if there were no ions to pass the cell would die due to osmotic imbalance

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