Bladder Cancer

Biology Investigation: Cell Cycle Control, Mitosis, and Cancer

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Instructions:

Topic Presentation:

Supplementary Resources:

“Crash Course: Biology” Videos:

Videos By Paul Anderson:

Additional questions to answer:

Things you should make sure you understand:

Instructions:

• Open the presentation.
• Watch the embedded video clips and move through the embedded content.
• Answer the “Questions to answer” at the end of the presentation.
• Make sure you understand the “Things you should make sure you understand”.
• Write down any questions that you have about the material.

Topic Presentation:

click here

Supplementary Resources:

“Crash Course: Biology” Videos:

Mitosis- Splitting Up is Complicated: Biology #12

Videos By Paul Anderson:

“Cell Cycle, Mitosis and Meiosis”

Additional questions to answer:

1. Why does a multicellular organism need to control and coordinate cell division?  What might be the consequences of uncontrolled cell division in a multicellular organism?
2. What does it mean when we say that there are several “checkpoints” that occur during the cell cycle?
3. Give an example of an external signal that regulates cell division and explain how it works.
4. Compare and contrast the functions of proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes.  Give an example of each and explain why mutations in these genes can lead to cancer.

Things you should make sure you understand:

(feel free to ask questions about them in class and/or carry out your own research project)

• The relationship between cancer and cell division.
• How cancer develops in an organism.
• How cancer is treated, and how those treatments affect cancer cells.

-Resources and presentations for this investigation were compiled by Mr. Knuffke so thank him if you run across him online!

Bladder Cancer

So the relationship between cancer and cell division, but both cancer and cell division separate in a very uncontrolled way.

Bladder cancer forms in the tissue of the bladder. The cancer will start in the cells of the inner lining of the bladder. Smoking is supposedly responsible for about half of bladder cancer cases in the USA.

Bladder cancer is treated by surgery- transurethral resection bladder tumor, particle cystectomy and this would be for the early stages. For the later stages it would be a different types of surgery and that would be radical cystectomy. 

Factors for Bladder Cancer

• Age
• Bladder Defects
• Cancer Therapies
• Chronic inflammation of the bladder
• Ethnic Background
• Exposure to certain chemicals
• Family history
• Gender
• Having had bladder cancer before
• Smoking

Symptoms of Bladder Cancer

• Hematuria
• More frequent urinations than usual
• Urinary tract infection
• Sudden urge to urinate
• Pain when urinating
• Pain in the pelvis
• Back pain
• Bone pain
• Unexplained weight loss
• Swelling of the legs

So there are four stages of bladder cancer. In stage one the cancer is in the inner lining of the bladder but it hasn't quite yet invaded the bladder wall. In stage two the cancer has invaded the bladder wall. In stage three the cancer has gone through the bladder wall and has spread to the surrounding tissue. In women this could be the vagina or uterus and for the men it could be the prostate. So in the fourth stage the cancer has already spread to the lymph nodes and other organs such as the liver bones or lungs.

So I ended up using all the videos and presentation you gave us to help us figure out this information, but I just felt like I was able to get a better understanding of it all the with the website Link

Green Human Project

So the company Applied Molecular Evolution is wanting us to create a human that is very energy efficient. This may seem a little difficult but all I plan on doing is comparing the way a human works and the way a plant works. Energy efficient is very important now days with the large amounts of pollutions and growth in population. This experiment can raise some good questions that I will try to answer and solve. Then I will see where I actually go from there.

1. How will light energy be captured? How do plants capture energy and what similar sorts of components would we have to build into our “green human?”  Would photosynthetic humans have to have green skin or could they be some other color? Will additional appendages be required for additional energy-collecting surface area and if so what form should they take? So the human will end up being the color green, since chlorophyll is green and the key ingredient to process of photosynthesis. If we had additional appendages, it could possible be easier for the human to collect some more energy. Since a plant with large leaves is able to collect more sunlight but if we were to lack for the extra arms or legs we could possibly need more light on the skin. So it can absorb and give us the energy we could be lacking. I believe this could make the most logical sense.
2. What sub-cellular structures (organelles) are required for photosynthesis and how does their structure promote the process of photosynthesis? Now this being yet another difficult task of actually being a green human, we would probably have to change our cells to work like a plant cell. By doing so we would need chloroplasts and like plants have, lager vacuoles..
3. How will the energy from energy-carrying molecules be used to create energy-storing molecules like glucose? What types of reactions do plants carry out and what are some of the enzymes that we will need to build into our photosynthetic humans? So as a green human we will need a place to our excess energy. A normal human tends to store all of their extra energy in their fat and if we could think of someone on the green human to store it would be great but instead of it being fat, it would be excess glucose. So thats a whole new problem considering the effects with osmosis so instead we would have to possible store the carbohydrates as glycogen. The way our body will be processing the glucose or sugars and that's where the enzymes come in. So in our body sugars break down in our digestive system quick and easy and since they do so we will not need as much enzymes to break the food down.
4. How will our photosynthetic humans use the energy stores (glucose) that they produce? What are the steps in normal human aerobic respiration that allow for release of energy from glucose? We plan to use the energy as a green human, the same as we do now, but we will produce extra and actually store it for later This is kind of like how you can save some of the solar energy from the panel, that way you have electricity at night. Possibly the green human would need more energy stored to carry out photosynthesis instead of respiration. So other than that it should be the same!
5. What public safety and/or ethical issues will need to be addressed during the completion of this project? Its only logical for there to be problems with an experiment like this for both ethically and safety. Some people wont believe in the idea of doing all of these different tests on humans, while others think it could be great. What if instead of helping global warming, it does the complete opposite. There are a lot of chances to take in this experiment but the outcome can be better then not trying it at all. 

So now that I am done with is Project I can honestly saying it was so bad after all! It's just took a lot of thinking but in the end it was actually kind of fun getting to mess around while being serious, al on the same page. 

PKU Webquest

PHENYLKETONURIA: A METABOLIC DISORDER

Metabolic disorders are genetic diseases that affect the body's ability to perform its normal chemical reactions. Many metabolic disorders result from enzyme defects. Recall that a metabolic pathway is a stepwise sequence of enzyme-mediated reactions. If one enzyme in a metabolic pathway is defective, that enzyme's substrate may accumulate and the pathway may not be completed. This may result in a buildup of harmful substances or a shortage of required molecules.

Activity

In this exercise, you will use the Web links below to gather information about the metabolic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU). Use what you learn to answer the questions at the bottom of the page.

Your Genes, Your Health: Phenylketonuria

http://www.ygyh.org

NSPKU Home Page

http://www.nspku.org

Baby’s First Test (Look up “Classic PKU”)

Newborn Screening in Colorado

Phenylketonuria - The Genetics

http://willroberts.com/pku/

Some possible questions for your research:

1. What enzyme is most commonly defective in people with phenylketonuria?

The enzyme that is most commonly defective in people with phenylketonuria is phenylalanine hydroxylalanine. This is needed to break down an essential amino acid called phenylalanine and foods that contain protein is where this substance is found.

2. What reaction does this enzyme catalyze? (What is the substrate and what product is produced?)
It actually breaks down phenylalanine into tyrosine.
 

3. Describe the symptoms of phenylketonuria.

The symptoms of phenylketonuria are dry, scaly skin (known as eczema), musty or mouse-like body odor, developmental delays, seizures (epilepsy), pale hair or skin, restlessness or fussiness, and smaller than a normal head.

4. What causes the symptoms of PKU, the lack of a substance or the buildup of one? Explain.
The lack of tyrosine causes a build up of PHe and the build of this in other parts puts a stop to the brain developing normally, this also adds to the other symptoms.

5. How common is phenylketonuria? How is it treated?

Phenylketonuria (PKU) appears in every one in ten thousand births. It is treated by being put on a low-protein diet for practically their whole lives

Photosynthesis Dry Lab

In this lab I had to do everything different. We didn't have to read procedures then do the lab but instead write up the procedures, purpose, and materials because we already have all the data from the lab. This lab is a little different from all the other ones we have done so far this semester.

  

Purpose:

So the purpose of this lab is to detect the effects of the color change of Bromothymol with the different conditions. Four different conditions are being used to test how carbon dioxide may change the color of the BTB when the two are combined.

Background Facts:

• Carbon dioxide in water produces carbonic acid.
• Bromothymol Blue (BTB) is a blue-green liquid which changes to a yellow color in acid and back to blue-green when returned to a neutral pH.
• Carbon dioxide plus water yields sugar and oxygen when chlorophyll and sunlight are present.
• Animals respire.
• Green plants photosynthesize in the light and respire all the time.
• Sugar plus oxygen yields carbon dioxide plus water and energy.

 

Hypothesis:

If you put a fish in the bromothymol blue, then the color is going to change because the two compounds are going to mix.

 

Materials

• 4 Large Beakers
• Bromothymol (BTB)
• 2 Goldfish
• 1 Light
• Aquarium Plant

 

 

Procedures:

1. Label each of the beakers with the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4.
2.  Fill all four beakers with 500 mL of water.
3. Put 50 drops of bromothymol in each of the beakers
4. Don't place anything in beakers 1
5. Place 1 goldfish in beaker 2
6. Put an aquarium plant in beaker 3
7. Add an aquarium plant and goldfish in beaker 4
8. Now leave the beakers 1, 2 and 3 in constant light for a 24 hour period
9. When the 24 hours is up, record each of the colors.
10. Last leave beaker 4 in the light for 21 hours, record the color
11. Then leave it in the dark for 3 hours, then record the color again.

 

 

Observation:

 

1. Water plus bromothymol blue is blue-green.
2. Water plus bromothymol blue plus an aquarium snail turns yellow.
3. Water plus bromothymol blue plus Elodea (an aquarium plant) is blue-green in light.
4. Water plus bromothymol blue plus a snail plus Elodea is blue-green in light and yellow when left in the dark for three hours.

 

Conclusion/Analysis:

1. Water plus bromothymol blue is blue-green because the BTB starts as a blue-green, but when it is mixed with the water it turns the water blue-green. The mixture stops the oxygen and the sugar from being taken out.
2. Water plus bromothymol blue plus an aquarium snail turns yellow because when the fish breathes in carbon dioxide, the carbon dioxide mixes with the water and it turns to carbonic acid. So when BTB is mixed with an acid, the color changes to yellow until a neutral ph is back into the BTB.
3. Water plus bromothymol blue plus Elodea (an aquarium plant) is blue-green in light because the plant actually takes in all of the carbon dioxide, so in the end the water and BTB will not change color.
4. Water plus bromothymol blue plus a goldfish plus Elodea is blue-green in light and yellow when left in the dark for three hours because carbon dioxide + water slows down sugar and oxygen when chlorophyll and sunlight are present.
   

 

 

Enzyme Activity Lab

What We Used

So in this lab we had to use a lot of different materials. They are all listed below.
- Computer
- Logger Pro
- Vemier Gas Pressure Sensor
- 1-Hole Rubber Stopper Assembly
- 10 mL Beaker of Water
- 250 mL Beaker of Water
- 3% H2O2
-600 mL Beaker
- Enzyme Suspension
- Four 18 x 150 mm Test Tubes
- Ice
- pH Buffers
- Test Tube Rack
-Thermometer
- Three Dropper pipettes

Introduction

So in this lab we are really focusing on enzymes. An enzyme is a type of protein that speeds up a certain chemical reaction and is produced by a living organism. We are going to try and demonstrate how enzymes works in different conditions and which ones they work best in. By doing so we are using yeast, hydrogen peroxide. water and different substances. In this lab the yeast is being use to demonstrate the enzyme and the hydrogen peroxide will be used to demonstrate substrates. There were kind of like three parts that we had to do differently over the experiment.

 

Procedure 

First Part -So first off we collected four test tubes and put 3 mL of water and 3 mL of hydrogen peroxide in each one. Then I put 15 drops of yeast which was the enzyme, then  on one test tube I attached the gas pressure sensor to the tube and kind of swirled the tube to mix the contents. We had to wait a little before we were able to get our results. Once we got our resulted we recorded it and had to do this three more times for our remainder tubes. Instead of doing 15 drops of yeast we ended up increasing the amount of drop for each tube to 22, 30, then 40 for our last one.

 

15 Drops- 21.49 kPa/min

22 Drops- 51.69 kPa/min

30 Drops- 10.12 kPa/min

40 Drops- 56.52 kPa/min



Second Part- We collected four test tubes, added 3 mL of water and 3 mL of hydrogen peroxide in each one of the tubes. In this part we decided to change up the temperatures of each tube by putting them in either ice or boiling water. There different temperatures were measured at 0 degree Celsius, 20 degree Celsius, 55 degree Celsius, and 99 degree Celsius. We let each of the test tubes sit for about 10 minutes then we added the same amount of drops of yeast (enzyme)  to each tube and again connected the gas pressure sensor. We had to wait a little before we were able to record our results.

0 Celsius- 26.16 kPa/min

20 Celsius- 28.8 kPa/min

55 Celsius- 36.59 kPa/min

90 Celsius- 58.369 kPa/min

Part Three- For the last part it was a little easier, we collected only three test tubes and added 3 mL of hydrogen peroxide into each one of them. Then we added 3 mL of  pH 4 in the first test tube, in the second one we put 3 mL pH 7 and in the last test tube we put 3 mL of pH 10. For the last time we attached the gas pressure sensor to the test tube and gently shook it to mix the contents. We waited a little then we able to get our results to record.

 

 

pH 4- 0.315 kPa/min

pH 7- 0.259 kPa/min

pH 10- 0.387 kPa/min

 

Conclusion

Now to wrap all of this up, we ended up studying the different rates of enzyme in their different temperatures. As the environment for the enzymes changes so did the rate for the reactions which was to be expected. In the first part the highest slope was 40 drops with a slope of 56.52 kPa/min. In the second part the highest slope was the 90 degree Celsius with 58.369 kPa/min. So in the last part the highest slope ended up being the pH 10 which was 0.387 kPa/min.