Question

A molecular biologist measures the mass of cofactor a in an average yeast cell. the mass is 74.06 pg . what is the total mass in micrograms of cofactor a in a yeast colony containing 105 cells

Answer 1

We know that one cell of yeast is 74.06 pg. To know the total mass of 105 cells, we will simply use cross multiplication as follows:
total mass = (105 x 74.06) / 1 = 7773.15 pg.

Now, we need to change pg to micro-grams.
From the standard units conversions, we know that:
1 pico is equivalent to 0.000001 micro.
Therefore,
total mass = (7773.15 x 0.000001) / 1 = 0.00777315 micro-grams
                 = 7.77315 x 10^-3 micro-grams