Egg Macromolecules Lab

    In this lab, we asked the question "Can macromolecules be identified in an egg cell?" We found that monsaccharides, polysaccharides, proteins, and lipids were all located in the cell. We found that there were monosaccharides in the egg white, and lipids in the egg yolk and egg membrane. This information is also in the biology textbook and in the background information article that was given to us. It talks about the functions of the nucleus, cytoplasm, and cell membrane. We can infer what macromolecules each part contains through these observations. This data supports our claim in the following ways. The nucleus has a membrane, and all membranes contain lipids bilayers, so the egg yolk will contain lipids. The cell membrane also is a membrane, so it will also contain lipids. The background information stated that the cytoplasm contained monosaccharides, which supported our claim, as it the egg white tested positive for monosaccharides.
    While our hypothesis was supported by our data, there could have been errors due to the fact that we may have put too much or too little solution in our tests. This could have impacted our results because the amount of solution may have changed the final color of the solution, making it more like the original solution color, or something like that. Another error might have been that our samples of the different parts of the egg may have been contaminated with other parts of the egg. For example, the some of the egg white may have went into the egg yolk part. This will have impacted the final results, since the different parts of the solution have different amounts of the macromolecules we were testing for. This would yield colors that are not for the part we are testing for. Due to these errors, in future experiments I would recommend that the scientists should be careful to correctly separate the different parts of the egg in the beginning and also carefully measure the amount of solution you put in the tests.
    This lab was done to demonstrate which types of macromolecules are contained in each part of the egg, or cell. From this lab, I learned how the different functions of organelles function impacts what macromolecules are in it, which helps me understand the concept of the parts of a cell and what we learned in class. Based on my experience on this lab, I can learn the concepts of biology better.