1 .

1 I n t r o d u c t I o n t o c e l l s

1 Moss leaf 2 Banana fruit cell 3 Mammalian liver cell

10 μm
5 μm

20 µm

Use a moss plant with very Scrape a small amountof the Scrape cells from a freshly cut

thin leaves. Mount a single soft tissue from a banana and surface of liver (not previously

leaf in a drop of water or place on a slide. Mount in a frozen). Smear onto a slide and

methylene blue stain. drop of iodine solution. add methylene blue to stain.

4 Leaf lower epidermis 5 Human cheek cell 6 White blood cell

20 μm

• ' . •
,
•.

10 μm 2 μm

1--------i

Peel the lower epidermis off a Scrape cells from the inside of A thin layer of mammalian

leaf. The cell drawn here was your cheek with a cotton bud. blood can be smeared overa

from Valeriana. Mount in water Smear them on a slide and add slide and stained with

or in methylene blue. methylene blue to stain. Leishman’s stain.

▲ Figure 6 Plant and animal cell drawings

Drawing cells

Drawing cell structures as seen with the light microscope.

Careful drawings are a useful way of recording the structure of cells or other biological structures.

Usually the lines on the drawing represent the edges of structures. Do not show unnecessary

detail and only use faint shading. Drawings of structures seen using a microscope will be larger

than the structures actually are – the drawing shows them magnied. On page 6 the method for

calculating the magnication of a drawing is explained. Everything on a drawing should be shown to

the same magnication.

a) Use a sharp pencil with b) Join up lines carefully c) Draw lines freehand,

a hard lead to draw to form continuous but use a ruler for

single sharp lines. structures such as cells labelling lines.

00
cell cell

▲
bad good

Figure 7 Examples of drawing styles

DC bad good bad good

5
1 C E L L B I O L O G Y

Calculation of magnication and actual size

Calculation of the magnication of drawings and the actual size of structures shown

in drawings or micrographs.

When we look down a microscope the structures It is very important when using this formula

that we see appear larger than they actually to make sure that the units for the size of the

are. The microscope is magnifying them. Most image and actual size of the specimen are the

microscopes allow us to magnify specimens by same. They could both be millimetres (mm) or

two or three different factors. This is done by micrometres ( µm) but they must not be different

rotating the turret to switch from one objective or the calculation will be wrong. Millimetres can

lens to another. A typical school microscope has be converted to micrometres by multiplying by

three levels of magnication: one thousand. Micrometres can be converted to

millimetres by dividing by one thousand.

●
× 40 (low power)

Scale bars are sometimes put on micrographs

●
× 100 (medium power)

or drawings, or just alongside them. These are

●
× 400 (high power)
straight lines, with the actual size that the scale

bar represents. For example, if there was a

If we take a photo down a microscope, we can

10 mm long scale bar on a micrograph with a

magnify the image even more. A photo taken down

magnication of ×10,000 the scale bar would

a microscope is called a micrograph. There are

have a label of 1 µm.

many micrographs in this book, including electron

micrographs taken using an electron microscope.

EX AMPLE:

The length of an image is 30 mm. It represents

When we draw a specimen, we can make the

a structure that has an actual size of 3 µm.

drawing larger or smaller, so the magnication

Determine the magnication of the image.

of the drawing isn’t necessarily the same as the

magnication of the microscope.

Either:

3
To nd the magnication of a micrograph or a
30 mm = 30 × 10 m

6
drawing we need to know two things: the size of
3 µm = 3 × 10 m

the image (in the drawing or the micrograph) and 3

30 × 10
_
Magnication =
the actual size of the specimen. This formula is 6

3 × 10

used for the calculation:

= 10,000 ×

size of image
___
Or:
magnication =

actual size of specimen

30 mm = 30,000 µm

If we know the size of the image and the

30,000
_
Magnication =
magnication, we can calculate the actual size
3

of a specimen. = 10,000 ×

Data-based questions

1 a) Determine the magnication of the string

of Thiomargarita cells in gure 8, if the

scale bar represents 0.2 mm [3]

b) Determine the width of the string

of cells. [2]

▲ Figure 8 Thiomargarita