Cellular metabolism is the set of chemical reactions present in all living organisms and helps sustain life. It involves metabolic pathways, complex sequences of biochemical reactions, controlled by enzymes, and allows organisms to create and maintain structures, reproduce, and respond to external stimuli. Cellular metabolism is classified into two categories: anabolic and catabolic. Anabolic metabolism involves the production of nucleic acids and enzymes to perform necessary functions ( Schcolnik-Cabrera et al., 2017) . Anabolism takes place in three stages: production of precursors, activation, and assembly into complex molecules. On the other hand, catabolic metabolism involves the breakdown of complex molecules to provide energy for anabolic reactions. Catabolic reactions are often exothermic.
Membrane transport, on the other hand, is the set of mechanisms that regulate the movement of solutes (small molecules and ions) through cellular membranes (lipid bilayers made from proteins; Greiner et al., 2018). The passage is selective, thus making them permeable to a limited number of substances. Membrane transport is mainly classified either as active or passive. Passive transport is driven by diffusion, primarily as a function of charge, concentration gradient, and size. On the other hand, active transport is the movement of a solute against a gradient, electrochemical, or concentration. As a result, transport proteins have to consume energy.
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However, membrane transport and metabolism are predicated on the premise that cells exist. Cellular reproduction explains two ways through which cells come into existence: mitosis and meiosis. Mitosis happens when a cell divides to produce an exact copy of itself (Kallen, 2020). Somatic cells reproduce by mitosis. Meiosis, on the other hand, divides cells into four, but the subsequent cells are not exact copies of the original (Kallen, 2020). Meiotic processes produce germ cells. It can be said that an organism’s dominant mode of cellular reproduction classifies it either as sexual or asexual. Humans reproduce sexually, while single-celled organisms reproduce asexually (predominantly).
References
Greiner, T., Moroni, A., Van Etten, J. L., & Thiel, G. (2018). Genes for membrane transport proteins: Not so rare in viruses. Viruses , 10 (9), 456.
Kallen, A. N. (2020). Basic genetics: mitosis, meiosis, chromosomes, DNA, RNA, and beyond. In Human Reproductive Genetics (pp. 3-16). Academic Press.
Schcolnik-Cabrera, A., Chávez-Blanco, A., Domínguez-Gómez, G., & Dueñas-González, A. (2017). Understanding tumor anabolism and patient catabolism in cancer-associated cachexia. American journal of cancer research , 7 (5), 1107.
