Master Mnemonic Collection for Cell Biology

1. Endomembrane System Flow "Every Girl Loves Vacations"

• ER → Golgi → Lysosomes → Vacuoles
• Helps remember the functional order of protein processing

2. Plant Cell Has, Animal Cell Lacks "Plants Can't Walk Very far" = Plant cell features:

• Plastids
• Cell wall (cellulose)
• (no Walking) → no centrioles
• Vacuole (large central)

"Animals Carry Luggage" = Animal cell features:

• Centrioles
• Lysosomes

3. Semi-Autonomous Organelles "My Car has its own DNA"

• Mitochondria + Chloroplasts → own DNA + 70S ribosomes

4. Ribosome Subunits — Which is Bigger? "Big 50 holds it together, Small 30 reads the code"

• 50S (large subunit) = peptide bond formation
• 30S (small subunit) = mRNA decoding, antibiotic target

5. Cell Wall Composition "BPC" — Bacteria = Peptidoglycan, Plants = Cellulose, Fungi = Chitin

• Animals = Absent (AO)

6. Golgi Faces "C is for Cargo-in (Cis); T is for Transport-out (Trans)"

• Cis face = receives from ER
• Trans face = releases vesicles

7. 9+2 Arrangement "Nine doubles around two singles"

• 9 peripheral microtubule doublets + 2 central singlets
• Only in eukaryotic cilia and flagella

8. Key Scientists "SSVI" — Schleiden, Schwann (Cell Theory); Virchow (Omnis cellula); Nicolson + Singer (1972 Fluid Mosaic)

• Hooke (1665) coined "cell"

9. Cristae vs Grana "CriSTAE = STACKS inside mitochondria; GRANA = GRAINS in chloroplasts"

• Cristae = inner membrane folds of mitochondria
• Grana = stacked thylakoids in chloroplasts

10. Plasmid Features "SCAR" = Small, Circular, Autonomous, Replication in prokaryotes