Plant and Animal Cell
A cell is the structural or functional unit of living things. Living things can be either unicellular or multicellular. Unicellular organisms are those that are made of a sing cell like the bacteria while multicellular are those that contain many cells an example being the human being. Each cell operates in its own way that is it takes in its own nutrients and converts them into energy, it also dose specialized functions and also reproduces. The cell also has its own set of instructions that control the activities that happen in it (Melchor, 2007). There are differences and similarities between plant and animal cells, which include:
Differences
i. The plant cell contains chloroplasts, which change light energy to ATP through photosynthesis while they are not present in animals.
ii. Plant cells cell wall contained cellulose but animal’s cell wall do not have
iii. Plant cells vacuole is large compared to animal cell
iv. Plant cells have a definite shape while the animal cell is not definitely shaped
v. The animal cells nucleus is located almost at the center of the cell while plant cell nucleus is located at the side of the cell (Narayan, 2000).
Similarities
i. They both contain a nucleus which controls all the activities of the cell
ii. They both contain cytoplasm
iii. Both contain Golgi apparatus.
Animal cell’s organelles
i. Nucleus –it controls all the activities in the cell and contains the DNA material
ii. endoplasmic reticulum-this are the sites for protein and lipid synthesis
iii. Cell membrane-it encloses all the other organelles and protects them from damage
iv. Ribosome-their main function is the synthesis of proteins (Narayan, 2000).
v. Mitochondrion-it contains enzymes that convert food materials to energy
References
Melchor, M. (2007). Introduction to Biology' 2007 Ed. Rex Bookstore, Inc.
Narayan, D. (2000). Plant cell vacuoles: an introduction. Csiro Publishing
