Plant vs Animal Cell – Know the Difference

Cells are the structural and functional unit of life. Cell are accountable for giving  shape ad carry out all the functions that take place like catabolism and anabolism. Cells coming together form tissues and groups of tissues form organs and all the organs together form the organ system . Thus, cell can be called the fundamental unit of life.  Single celled organisms are the unicellular organisms and those with greater number of cells are called multicellular organisms. Within these cells are the cell organelles which are the subunits that perform the functions of the cell. Based on the purpose the cell serves, thus are called the fundamental unit of life. Organisms can be separated on the basis of the number of cells present in them. Both plants and animals are eukaryotic in nature which means that they have a well defined nucleus. Some of the cell organelles are common both in plants and animals and maximum of them are different. The plants have the cell walls, but the animal cells lacks the cell wall. It implies that the animals eat the other cells, but the plants make the cells by making the carbons into the oxygen. Hence, the animals cells are the sword that kill the other cells.

Plant Cell

Plant cells are eukaryotic cells present in green plants, photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The characteristic features include primary cell walls containing cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectin, the presence of plastids with the capability to perform photosynthesis and store starch, a large vacuole that controls turgor pressure, the absence of flagella or centrioles, except in the gametes, and a unique method of cell division involving the formation of a cell plate or phragmoplast that separates the new daughter cells.

Distinctive Features:

• Plant cells have cell walls, present outside the cell membrane
• It is composed of cellulose, hemicelluloses, and pectin.
• The composition differs with the cell walls of fungi, which are made of chitin, of bacteria, which are made of peptidoglycan and of archaea, which are made of pseudopeptidoglycan.
• In many cases lignin or suberin are released  by the protoplast as secondary wall layers inside the primary cell wall.
• Cutin is released outside the primary cell wall and into the outer layers of the secondary cell wall of the epidermal cells of leaves, stems and other above-ground organs to form the plant cuticle.
• Cell walls perform many vital functions.
• They give shape to form the tissue and organs of the plant, and play an important role in intercellular communication and plant-microbe interactions.
• Many types of plant cells contain a large central vacuole, a water-filled entity enclosed by a membrane known as the tonoplast
• It maintains the cell’s turgor, controls movement of molecules between the cytosol and sap, stores important  material such as phosphorus and nitrogen and digests waste proteins and organelles.
• Specialized cell-to-cell communication pathways known as plasmodesmata, occur in the form of pores in the primary cell wall through which the plasmalemma and endoplasmic reticulum of adjacent cells are continuous.
• Plant cells contain plastids, the most important being chloroplasts, which contain the green-colored pigment chlorophyll that transforms the energy of sunlight into chemical energy that the plant uses to make its own food from water and carbon dioxide in the process known as photosynthesis.
• Other types of plastids are the amyloplasts, known for starch storage, elaioplasts known for fat storage, and chromoplasts known for synthesis and storage of pigments.
• The mitochondria, have a genome encoding 37 genes, plastids have their own genomes of about 100–120 unique genes and are recognized as having arisen as prokaryotic endosymbionts living in the cells of an early eukaryotic ancestor of the land plants and algae.
• Many cellular structures are membranous and their composition includes lipids.
• Cell division in land plants and a few groups of algae, notably the Charophytes and the Chlorophyte Order Trentepohliales, takes place by construction of a phragmoplast as a template for building a cell plate late in cytokinesis.
• The motile, free-swimming sperm of bryophytes and pteridophytes, cycads and Ginkgo are the only cells of land plants to have flagella

Animal Cell

Animal cells are typical of the eukaryotic cell, limitated by a plasma membrane and containing a membrane-bound nucleus and organelles. Unlike the eukaryotic cells of plants and fungi, animal cells do not posses a cell wall. The feature was lost in the distant past by the single-celled organisms that gave rise to the kingdom Animalia.  Anatomy of the Animal Cell The lack of a rigid cell wall allowed animals to develop a greater diversity of cell types, tissues, and organs. Specialized cells that formed nerves and muscles—tissues impossible for plants to evolve—gave these organisms mobility. The ability to move about by the use of specialized muscle tissues is a hallmark of the animal world, though a few animals, primarily sponges, do not possess differentiated tissues. Notably, protozoans locomote, but it is only via nonmuscular means, in effect, using cilia, flagella, and pseudopodia

Distinctive Features:

• The cell membrane is a fluid mosaic structure which is designed of a phospholipid bilayer and other important macromolecules such as proteins.
• The cell membrane differentiates  the cell from the environment and allows the movement of materials in and out of the cell.
• The cytoplasm is the liquid within the cell where the different organelles are found.
• It is here where many functions occur. Including cell division and glycolysis.
• The golgi apparatus organelle in which proteins are modified, sorted, and sent to various parts of the cell.
• Modifications on the protein include but are not limited to, glycosylation.
• Mitochondria does the cellular respiration of the cell by converting glucose into ATP (cellular energy).
• The mRNA from the nucleus are used by Ribosomes in a process called translation.
• Translation is when the Ribosome joins amino acids together according to the sequence of the mRNA.
• The more ribosomes in a cell, the proteins it synthesizes. They are located in two areas, on the ER or in the cytosol.
• The store and transport material through the cell happens through the endoplasmic reticulum.
• Proteins are produced here in the ribosomes bound to the rough ER.
• Functions in the synthesis of lipids, detoxification of drugs and poisons, storage of calcium ions, and metabolism of carbohydrates. In contrast to the Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum, the smooth ER is not studded with proteins.
• A specialized metabolic compartment bounded by a single membrane.
• Additionally, it possesses enzymes that transfer hydrogen atoms from substrates to oxygen, producing hydrogen peroxide as a by-product.
• Then, hydrogen peroxide is converted to water by another enzyme.
• The nucleus is usually the largest organelle in a cell. It consists of different parts such as the nuclear envelope, chromosomes, and the nucleolus.
• The nuclear envelope surrounds the nucleus while segregating the chromatin from the cytoplasm and consists of two membranes each made of a lipid bilayer.
• The membranes have pores that regulate what goes in and out of the nucleus. Inside the nucleus is the nucleolus which holds the genetic material DNA. Using this DNA, transcription is carried out making mRNA.
•  The “storage space” that stores water, salt, and other important substances.
• There are also food vacuoles that are cellular organelles in which food is broken down by hydrolytic enzymes.
• These food vacuoles are the simplest digestive compartments.
• The process of intracellular digestion occurs inside vacuoles, which is the process of hydrolysis of food.
• This process begins after a cell engulfs food materials through phagocytosis (solid food) or pinocytosis (liquid food).
• Lysosome is said to be the  the “digestion compartment” of the cell. Lysosomes break down cellular wastes such as fats, proteins, or carbohydrates.
• The rid of the cellular materials that are no longer useful in the cell.
• The cytoskeleton  a structure made out of protein to give the cell its shape and structure. It also helps cellular motion with the use of flagella, cilia, or lamelllipodia.
•  Centrioles are used through cell division.
• They organize the mitotic spindle during the end of cytokinesis.
• The centrioles are located within the centrosome and come in pairs.
• Each pair of centrioles are compiled of nine sets of triplet microtubules assembled into a ring. Prior to animal cell division, the centrioles replicate.
• Although centrosomes with centrioles may assist the organization of microtubule construction in animal cells, they are not crucial for this particular function in all eukaryotes; e.g. the fungi and the majority of plant cells lack centrosomes with centrioles, but still contain well-assembled microtubules