Weekly Reflctions - Week 6

On this week I’ve learned many things including cell cycle, totipotency, pollination and embryo development. This is all about plant.  At the same time, I have to understand all of this topics to prepare for my exam especially.  Basically all living things undergo cell division and growth. They divide and grow to replace lost or damaged cells, to allow an organism to grow and also to reproduce the next generation. Basically in prokaryotes the cell cycle is simple and may occur as often as 20 minutes but in eukaryotes the cells that divide regularly will go through the cell cycle in about 24 hours. So talk about eukaryotes, its cell cycle consist of four different phase that is GAP1(G1), Synthesis phasa(S), GAP2(G2) and Mitotic phasa(M). In the mitosis cycle phase, it consist of prophase,metaphase, anaphase, telophase and last but not least cytokinesis. The passage of a cell through the cell cycle is controlled by proteins in the cytoplasm called Cyclins. Each phase has different controlled protein. Next, I learned about plant growth and meristematic tissue in the plant where lecture had told us how it can growth and which one is the meristematic tissue is. Other that, I’ve learned about totipotency which the new topic and it’s really new in me since I study in a science stream. So, totipotency is the ability of a individual plant cell or plant tissue or plant organ to regenerate into a whole plant under right condition. At the time we learning about totipotency, Dr. Parameswari brought along a sample of plant tissue culture from someone ‘s else project. It is not really new for me to take a look of that plant tissue culture because I’ve been doing plant tissue culture before this from another university and it was really awesome and I would like to do it again. There are four sample that Dr. Parames brought to the class which is a plant that grow more to stems and the other more to roots. This is because of the agar produced that has different hormones added wether it is high in auxin or high in cytokenin. In tissue culture, we have been showed how plants undergo from explant to embryo, explant to callus, callus to plant organ or from explant directly to plant organ. Which is roots or stems.

                Next, I learned about pollination and development of plant embryo. Pollination is one kind of familiar topic because I already learned about this since in primary school. But I like this topic because it shows on how does plant develop where there are agents for pollination such as insects and winds. Insect pollination typically involves flowering plants and wind pollination involves non-flowering plants such as grass, conifers and many more. After the pollen has been transferred to another plant, the pollen will undergo zygotic embryogenesis. To form zygotic embryogenesis, there is plant cycle occurs. Not only that, the is also life cycle of angispearm which is flowering plant. In pollination also occur double fertilization in the ovules and which also produced endospearm. While listening to the lecture, Dr. Parames gave us an exercises through the slide. It was really helpful for us to reminds and remember all that stuff we have been learned before.