A.) Assume a muscle cell is a sphere with a diameter of 50.0 micrometers. Muscle

Question

A.) Assume a muscle cell is a sphere with a diameter of 50.0 micrometers. Muscle cells contain the protein actin, which can be thought of as a sphere with a diameter of 3.6 nm. Assuming the muscle cell has no other cellular components, how many molecules of actin would fit inside the cell.   Volume of a sphere is (4/3)*pi*r^3.

B.) If this were a liver cell of the same dimensions, how many mitochondria could it hold? Assume the cell is spherical, no other cellular components are present and the mitochondria are spherical with a diameter of 1.5 micrometers.

C.) Glucose is a major energy-yielding nutrient for most cells. Assuming a cellular concentration of 1.0 mM, calculate how many molecules of glucose would be present in our hypothetical liver cell.

D.) Hexokinase is an important enzyme in the metabolism of glucose. If the concentration of hexokinase in our eukaryotic cell is 20.0 microMolar, how many glucose molecules are present per hexokinase molecule?

Show all work, answer all 4 components of the problem please. Thanks!

Explanation / Answer

1. If this cell were a muscle cell (myocyte), how many molecules of actin could it hold? (Assume the cell is spherical and no other cellular components are present; actin molecules are spherical, with a diameter of 3.6 nm. The volume of a sphere is 4/3 ?r3

Answer: 2.7 X 1012 actin molecules

2. If this were a liver cell (hepatocyte) of the same dimensions, how many mitochondria could it hold? (Assume the cell is spherical; no othe cellular components are present; and the mitochondria are spherical, with a diameter of 1.5 ?m).

Answer: 36000 mitochondria

3. Glucose is a major energy-yielding nutrient for most cells. Assuming a cellular concentration of 0f 1 mM, calculate how many molecules of glucose would be present in our hypothetical (and spherical) eukaryotic cell. (Avogadro's number, the number of molecules in 1 mol of a nonionized substance, is 6.02 X 1023).

Answer: 3.9 X 1010 glucose molecules

4. Hexokinase is an important enzyme in the metabolism of glucose. If the concentration of hexokinase in our eukaryotic cell is 20 ?M, how many glucose molecules are present per hexokinase molecule?

Answer:50 glucose molecules per hexokinase molecule

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