The Basic Structure of the Cell in Animals and Plants

Introduction

The cell is the basic functional and structural unit of life. Human beings are multi-cellular animals. What this means is that we humans are made of many cells of cells as opposed to unicellular organisms which are composed of only one cell. The cells in a lot of multi-cellular animals and plants are specialized.

This means that each of them carries out a specific function and when all the cells combine together with their functions, they can share out the processes of life. Each cell is dependent on the other and all of them function collaboratively to support the diverse processes in an organism.

Below are examples of some specialized animal and plant cells, together with their functions and special features.

Types of Animal Cell

1.     Red Blood Cell: The red blood cell has large surface area for oxygen to pass through. It’s major function is to transport oxygen round the body. The red blood cell contains haemoglobin, which reacts with oxygen to form oxyhaemoglobin.

2.     Nerve Cells: Nerve cells transport nervous impulses to various parts of the body. It has a long connection at each end and has the capacity to carry electrical signals.

3.     Female Reproductive Cell: This is also known as the egg cell. The egg cell’s function is to combine with the male cell, and subsequently to make food available for the new cell that was formed  The egg cell is large and contains a lot of cytoplasm.

4.     Male Reproductive Cell: This is also known as the sperm cell. The sperm cell function is to travel up and meet with egg cell for a fusion to form a zygote. The sperm cell has an elongated tail for swimming as well as a head which enables it to get attached with the female egg cell for a fusion.

Types of Plant Cells

1.        Root hair cell: The root hair cell absorbs water and minerals from the soil. It has a large surface area.

2.       Leaf cell: The leaf cell absorbs sunlight for the process of photosynthesis. It has large surface area and lots of chloroplasts

Comparison chart between plant and animal cell

Plant and animal cells have quite a few differences and similarities. For instance, animal cells do not have a cell wall or chloroplasts but plant cells have them. Animal cells are round and irregular in shape whereas plant cells have fixed rectangular shapes.

The table below makes it clearer.

S/NO	Features	Animal Cell	Plant Cell
1	Cell wall	Absent	Present- formed from cellulose; hence it is called cellulose cell wall
2	Shape	Round or irregular shape	Rectangular or fixed shape
3	Vacoule	Contains one or more small vacuoles	Has one central vacuole that occupies about 90% of cell volume
4	Centrioles	Present in all animal cells	Only present in lower plant forms
5	Chloroplast	Absent	Plants have both chloroplasts and chlorophyll because they are autotrophs that manufacture their own food
6	Cytoplasm	Present	Present
7	Endoplasmic Reticulum	Present	Present
8	Ribosomes	Present	Present
9	Mitochondria	Present	Present
10	Plastids	Absent	Present
11	Golgi Apparatus	Present	Present
12	Plasma membrane	Have only cell membrane	Have a cell wall and a cell membrane
13	Microtubules/Microfilaments	Present	Present
14	Flagella	May be found in some animal cells	May be found in some plant cells
15	Lysosomes	Occur in cytoplasm	Usually not present
16	Nucleus	Present	Present
17	Cilia	Present	Very rare

In conclusion, both the animal cells and plant cells contain:

•       Cell membrane

•       Cytoplasm

•       Nucleus

Plant cells in addition to possessing these features also found in
animal cells, has:

•       Chloroplasts

•       Vacuole

•       Cell wall