what are the chemical components (elements or molecules) of an animal cell?

Question

please help, i'm confused. i was thinking it was the actual organelles but then its asking for elements or molecules, so is it like oxygen and stuff that come into the cell via diffusion and osmosis?

thanx

Answer 1

Basically

Carbon
Oxygen
Hydrogen
Phosphorous
Nitrogen
Sulphur

+ a bit of some metals like Iron, Magnesium, Copper, Zinc...

Then you can make the carbohydrates, nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, phospholipids etc that make up the cell... The metals are mostly included in enzymes within the cell.

Other things that come into the cell like sodium wouldn't be considered a component of the cell, although they are essential to the cell function.

Answer 2

the major components of atoms have already come your way. The molecules are proteins, nucleic acids, lipids that go to form the cell organelle walls, and coenyme molecules that are made from various vitamins and metals. Water molecule is also abundant as it makes the base in which everything is awash. The amino acids, purine and pyramidine bases are also molecules that the cell uses to mae its proteins and nucleic acids. so are the fatty acids and glycerol. Also there are molecules of the various metabolic cycles.

Answer 3

Nitrogen occurs in the gas form as a DIMER, with each atom triple-bonded. The gas is rather inert, and compounds with nitrogen are usually made from ammonia as the basic compound. The conversion of nitrogen to ammonia, which became an important industrial process about 100 years ago. NH3 has nitrogen in the -3 oxidation state, and by oxidation, compounds of the +1 state (like N2O), +2 state (like NO), +4 state (like NO2), and +5 state (N2O5, which hydrated, forms nitric acid) are produced. With ammonia, hydrogen compounds such as hydrazine (N2H4) and azoic acid (HN3) can be produced. Nitrogen is vital to life in that amino acids have the generic structure of H2N-R-COOH, where R is the organic substrate. Fertilizers include ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) and hexamethylenetetramine (C6H12N4), formed from dehydration of ammonia and formaldehyde, and synthetic compounds from guanidine CH3-CN-CH3.

Answer 4

Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Sulphur.

Answer 5

water, electrolytes (potassium, sodium, etc.), DNA, RNA