Imagine that your liver, which has a volume of 2 liters, developed from a single
ID: 175479 • Letter: I
Question
Imagine that your liver, which has a volume of 2 liters, developed from a single embryonic precursor cell with a volume of 1000 mu m^3, or 10^-12 liters. How many cell division cycles would be required for the precursor cell to produce your mature liver? Determine the closest integral number. What if the control of liver organogenesis were a bit faulty, and the process went exactly 3 cell division cycles beyond this? What then would be the volume of your liver? What if the process halted exactly 3 divisions too soon? What would be the resulting volume of your liver?Explanation / Answer
The number of cells in the liver is approximately 2/10-12 = 2×1012.
Number of cell cycles required to produce 2×1012 cells is log2(2×1012) = 40.86 (~ 41)
Therefore, about 41 cycles of cell division are required to form the mature liver.
If 3 extra cell cycles took place, the total number of cells would be 244 = 1.76×1013, and volume would be 1.76×1013 × 10-12 ~ 17.59 Litres
If 3 less cycles took place, the total number of cells would be 238 = 2.74×1011, and volume would be 2.74×1011 × 10-12 ~ 0.275 Litres