Question

Are organelles still working after you use cell fractionation? When you do it you've pretty much screw up the homeostasis of the organelles because obviously not all of them can function on their own. Chloroplast and Mitochondria could still function because they are relative independent.

Can anyone explain/point out flaws?

Answer 1

relatively

Answer 2

chloroplast and mitochondria can still function because they have their own genetic material. so they can synthesize their own protein... but still we cant neglect the fact that it is completely autonomous with respect to certain protein which are required for carrying metabolic reactions.... it depends on chromosomal DNA for certain proteins .....

Answer 3

^chandhuru is correct!

My understanding is as follows: Let's assume that fractionation does not totally obliterate the organelles, and that we're only concerned with seeing if, isolated, the organelles could still function properly. Since an organelle acts as a little machine, more or less (input --> organelles --> output), by themselves - the organelles would not function.

At the same time, that's not to say they *necessarily* need a cell surrounding them to function...

In 1968, the Nobel Prize in Phys/Med was awarded to three men for deciphering the genetic code. One of these men, Nirenberg, actually isolated ribosomes into test tubes and "fed" them specific mRNA strands in order to deduce the resulting proteins made (allowing him to translate between the language of nucleotidse and the language of amino acids).

"In this situation Nirenberg arrived at a very simple and ingenious solution: he realized that the biochemist had a decisive advantage over the archeologist since he could construct in the test tube a system which uses a nucleic acid as template for the formation of a protein. Such a system can be compared with a translation-machine which is fed by the scientist with a sentence written in the alphabet of nucleic acids; the machine then translates the sentence into the protein alphabet. Nirenberg synthesized a very simple nucleic acid, composed of a chain of only a single repeating letter. "

In this case, Nirenberg created his own little translation machine, composed primarily of isolated ribosomes; so my (long-winded) point is, even outside the cell, with the proper inputs, an organelle could still function :)