The Human Cell and Nutrients essays

The Human Cell and Nutrients essays There are several problems that a cell would face it if were to become very large. Among the first of these is being faced with an overload of nutrients. All nutrients enter the cell through the cell membrane. The larger the cell wall, the more nutrients it will contact; an abundance could potentially be available to the cell as they pass through the cell membrane. However, the more nutrients arriving, the greater the number of chemical reactions needed to process them. Moreover, all the nutrients would be arriving simultaneously, putting pressure on the cell structures to perform a large number of chemical processes at the same time. While a small cell would have insufficient cell membrane to move sufficient raw materials to nourish itthat is, to allow it to perform the necessary chemical reactions to livea really enormous cell would have the opposite problem. While the exterior, or cell membrane would increase in size, the interior area would expand even more, meaning that the membrane might not be able to acquire sufficient raw materials to keep the relatively larger volume of the interior supplied. (USC Web site) In addition, there are limits to the amount of incoming material that can be handled according to the cell's DNA, and limits to the amount of waste material, as well. This, too, must exit through the cell membrane. (CSUN Web site) An adaptation might be to create inlets' in the cell membrane, much like the inlets and bays and harbors on heavily indented coastlines that allow more ocean water to touch land; that is, to create in a cell the equivalent of a long shoreline, where the extra miles are gained by making pockets where the land and water meet. Another possible adaptation would be for the cell to separate its nutrient acquisition and waste elimination functions, holding them in separate structures and using...