Whenever you feel hungry in My Biologia park just go to the park’s canteen and must try our SINGLE
CELLED OMELET hahaha don’t be confused. Today we are going to deal with the cell.
As earlier, I have mentioned cell is the basic structural and functional unit of life today; we will discuss
how that definition suits and why we consider the cell as a functional unit. You must have a question
about a cell’s appearance, size, shape; who named its cell? Why named its cell?
The Origin of Cell Biology
In the year 1665, English scientist ROBERT HOOKE discovered the term “CELL” during his experiment, he
observes a slice of cork (part of the bark of trees) under the microscope, and he noticed the assembly of
boxes separately in the slice, and that reminds him about the monastery (you can consider ashram)
where monk used to live in those days the construction of the monastery was the same as the structure he
observed under the microscope.
It’s like rooms attached to each other, separated by a wall. He named them a cell because it reminds him
of the cells or quarters in which people use to live. You can imagine the honeycomb in which bees used
to live.
As we know, bricks are the basic unit to build any kind of construction, then that can be of any house,
school, mandir, masjid, complex, etc., etc. during construction, bricks are assembled in a specific fashion
to construct good and strong buildings, same like that cell assembly also have their own type of
arrangement to form a specific structure. Due to less evolution in microscopes, we are less informed
about cells till the next 150 years.
Cell is a complex living structure that is composed of various organelles in it. It has the ability to form a
whole organism which can be unicellular or multicellular.
Unicellular organisms
organisms with only one cell
For better clearance, you can take an example of a hen egg. It is a single-celled that yellow part (YOLK),
we can see with necked eyes, Amoeba, paramecium.
Multicellular organisms
organisms with multiple cells
Here we can consider our body which is made up of various cells. Now the Mistry is about the functioning of single-celled and multiple-celled organisms. Unicellular organisms possess the ability to perform almost all the functions like multicellular organisms like a one-
man army. Less number of cells does not affect the functioning of the organism.
Billions and trillions of cells are present normally in our body.
Another question you may have if a single cell can form and life as a whole body, for example, Amoeba,
then why not WBC (white blood cell) as they are also single-celled?
So, the Amoeba is a fully-fledged organism capable of independent existence, while WBC is a cell and
not an organism.
Hierarchy of Cell
These cells are combined to form tissue, and these tissues combine to form organs.
Tissue – is a group of similar cells.
Organ – is a group of similar tissues, including bones.
These cells have different sizes and shapes. The size of cells has no relation with the size of the body; it totally depends on its function. Cell size is the millionth of a meter, micrometer, or micron.
Smallest cell size – 0.1-0.5 mm in bacteria
Largest cell size – 170 mm * 130 mm is an egg of an ostrich
The shape of these cells varies according to their location and function; some are spherical or elongated
(RBC), some are spindle-shaped (muscle cells), some are round, and some are long, pointed at both ends
and branched (nerve cells).
These different shapes of cells are provided by the membrane, which is present externally around the
cell, which is called a cellular membrane or plasma membrane. This plasma membrane gets help from
the outermost layer of the cell, that is, the cell wall, which provides shape and rigidity to the plasma
membrane. Every different structure of a cell provides a different type of function to it.
Assembly of 3 major components for cell
After the evolution in the microscopes and different microscopic techniques, it becomes so easy to
study deeply any cells and its component. In the next blog ill take you to the deep study of a cell
and its components. Till the time, stay connected.
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