Introduction to Cell

Biology

Dr. Ifrah Mohamed

How you’re marks are divided

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Reference

✘ Essential to Cell biology, 4th

Edition. Albert et al
✘ Lecture lessons.
What is Cell
Biology?
Cell biology is the study of cell structure
and function, and it revolves around the
concept that the cell is the fundamental
unit of life. All living things, including
humans, animals, and plants, are made of
cells.
Animal cell Fungus cell

Plant cell
Discovery of Cells
✘ Cells were not made visible until the
seventeenth century, when the
microscope was invented.
✘ For almost 200 years, such
instruments—the first light
microscopes—remained exotic
devices, available only to a few
wealthy individuals.
✘ It was not until the nineteenth century
that microscopes began to be widely
Light Microscopy
✘ Light microscopes use visible light to illuminate
specimens, and they allowed biologists to see
for the first time the intricate structure that
underpins all living things.
✘ By cutting a small tissue from an animal or
plant , you will able to see using a light
microscope that the tissue is divided into
thousands of small cells.
✘ These may be either closely packed or
separated from one another by an extracellular
matrix, a dense material often made of protein
fibers embedded in a polysaccharide gel
✘ To see the internal structure of a cell is difficult, not only
because the parts are small, but also because they are
transparent and mostly colorless.
✘ One way around the problem is to stain cells with dyes
that color particular components differently
✘ A large, round structure, the nucleus, is prominent in the
middle of the cell.
✘ Around the nucleus and filling the cell’s interior is the
cytoplasm, a transparent substance crammed with what
seems at first to be a jumble of miscellaneous objects.
✘ With a good light microscope, one can begin to distinguish
and classify some of the specific components in the
cytoplasm, but structures smaller than about 0.2 μm—about
half the wavelength of visible light—cannot normally be
resolved; points closer than this are not distinguishable and
Fluorescence Microscope
✘ Use sophisticated methods of illumination and
electronic image processing to see fluorescently
labeled cell components in much finer detail .
✘ Can push the limits of resolution down even
further, to about 20 nanometers (nm).
✘ That is the size of a single ribosome, a large
macromolecular complex composed of 80–90
individual proteins and RNA molecules.
Electron microscopes

✘ Invented in the 1930s

✘ Go beyond this limit by using
beams of electrons instead of
beams of light as the source of
illumination.
✘ Greatly extending our ability to
see the fine details of cells and
even making some of the larger
molecules visible individually.
✘ Require painstaking preparation.
✘ For a light microscope, a tissue often has to be fixed (that is,
preserved by pickling in a reactive chemical solution)
✘ supported by embedding in a solid wax or resin, cut or sectioned into
thin slices.
✘ stained before it is viewed.
✘ For electron microscopy, similar procedures are required, but the
sections have to be much thinner and there is no possibility of looking
at living, wet cells
Cells: The fundamental
units of life
✘ All organisms are made of cells
✘ They are the structural and
function unit of all living
organisms.
✘ Cell structure is correlated to
cellular function.
✘ Cell biology is the study of cells
and their
function, and behavior.
Types of cells

✘ The basic structural and functional

unit of every organism is one of
two types of cells: prokaryotic
or eukaryotic
✘ Only organisms of the domains
Bacteria and Archaea consist of
prokaryotic cells
✘ Protists, fungi, animals, and plants
all consist of eukaryotic cells
Comparing Prokaryotic and
Eukaryotic Cells

Basic features of all cells

✘ –Plasma membrane
✘ –Semifluid substance called
cytosol
✘ –Chromosomes (carry genes)
✘ –Ribosomes (make proteins)
Prokaryotic cells
Prokaryotic cells are characterized
by having
–No nucleus
–DNA in an unbound region called
the nucleoid
–No membrane-bound organelles
–Cytoplasm bound by the plasma
membrane
Eukaryotic cells

Eukaryotic cells are characterized

by having
–DNA in a nucleus that is bounded
by a membranous nuclear envelope
–Membrane-bound organelles
–Cytoplasm in the region between
the plasma membrane and nucleus
✘ Eukaryotic cells are generally
much larger than prokaryotic cells
Eukaryotic Cell
✘ A eukaryotic cell has internal
membranes that partition the cell
into organelles
✘ Plant and animal cells have most of
the same organelles
✘ The eukaryotic cell’s genetic
instructions are housed in the nucleus
and carried out by the ribosomes
✘ •The plasma membrane is a
selective barrier that allows
sufficient passage of oxygen,
nutrients, and waste to service
the volume of every cell
✘ •The general structure of a
biological membrane is a double
layer of phospholipids
The Endoplasmic Reticulum: Biosynthetic
Factory

• The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) accounts for

more than half of the total membrane in many
eukaryotic cells
• The ER membrane is continuous with the
nuclear envelope
• There are two distinct regions of ER
– Smooth ER, which lacks ribosomes
– Rough ER, surface is studded with ribosomes
 Smooth ER
Nuclear
envelope
Rough ER

ER lumen
Cisternae Transitional ER
Ribosomes
Transport vesicle
200 nm
Smooth ER Rough ER
Functions of Smooth ER
• The smooth ER
– Synthesizes lipids
– Metabolizes carbohydrates
– Detoxifies drugs and poisons
– Stores calcium ions
Functions of Rough ER
• The rough ER
• Has bound ribosomes, which
synthesize proteins,
• Distributes transport
vesicles, proteins
surrounded by membranes
The Golgi Apparatus: Shipping and
Receiving Center
✘ The Golgi apparatus consists of
flattened membranous sacs called
cisternae
✘ Functions of the Golgi apparatus
✗ Modifies products of the ER
✗ Manufactures certain macromolecules
✗ Sorts and packages materials into
transport vesicles
cis face
(“receiving” side of 0.1
Golgi apparatus) m
Cisternae

trans face
(“shipping” side of TEM of Golgi apparatus
Golgi apparatus)
Lysosomes: Digestive
Compartments
• A lysosome is a
membranous sac of
hydrolytic enzymes that can
digest macromolecules
• Lysosomal enzymes can
hydrolyze proteins, fats,
polysaccharides, and nucleic
acids
• Lysosomal enzymes work best
in the acidic environment inside
• Some types of cell can engulf another cell by
phagocytosis; this forms a food vacuole
• A lysosome fuses with the food vacuole and
digests the molecules
• Lysosomes also use enzymes to recycle the
cell’s own organelles and macromolecules, a
process called autophagy
 Vesicle containing
1
Nucleus two damaged 1
m
organelles m

Mitochondrion
fragment

Lysosome Peroxisome
fragment

Digestive
enzymes
Lysosome

Lysosome
Plasma membrane Peroxisome

Digestion

Food vacuole Mitochondrion Digestion

Vesicle

(a) Phagocytosis (b) Autophagy

Vacuoles: Diverse Maintenance
Compartments
• A plant cell or fungal cell may have one or
several vacuoles, derived from endoplasmic
reticulum and Golgi apparatus
• Food vacuoles are formed by phagocytosis
• Contractile vacuoles, found in many freshwater
protists, pump excess water out of cells
• Central vacuoles, found in many mature plant
cells, hold organic compounds and water
 Central vacuole

Cytosol

Central
Nucleus vacuole
Cell wall
Chloroplast
5
m
Mitochondria and chloroplasts change energy
from one form to another

• Mitochondria are the sites of cellular respiration,

a metabolic process that uses oxygen to
generate ATP
• Chloroplasts, found in plants and algae, are the
sites of photosynthesis
Mitochondria: Chemical Energy
Conversion
• Mitochondria are in nearly all eukaryotic
cells
• They have a smooth outer membrane
and an inner membrane folded into
cristae
• The inner membrane creates two
compartments: intermembrane space and
mitochondrial matrix
• Some metabolic steps of cellular
respiration are catalyzed in the
mitochondrial matrix
 10
m
Intermembrane space
Outer Mitochondria
membrane

DNA

Inner
Free Mitochondrial
membrane
ribosomes DNA
in the Cristae
mitochondrial Nuclear DNA
Matrix
matrix
0.1
(a) Diagram and TEM of mitochondrion m (b) Network of mitochondria in a protist cell
(LM)
Chloroplasts: Capture of Light
Energy
• Chloroplasts contain the green
pigment chlorophyll, as well as
enzymes and other molecules
that function in photosynthesis
• Chloroplasts are found in leaves
and other green organs of
plants and in algae
• Chloroplast structure includes
– Thylakoids, membranous sacs, stacked to form a
granum
– Stroma, the internal fluid
• The chloroplast is one of a group of plant organelles,
called plastids
 Ribosomes 50
Stroma m

Inner and outer

membranes
Granum

Chloroplasts
(red)
DNA
Thylakoid Intermembrane space 1
(a) Diagram and TEM of chloroplast m (b) Chloroplasts in an algal
cell
Peroxisomes: Oxidation
✘ Peroxisomes are specialized
metabolic compartments
bounded by a single membrane
✘ Peroxisomes produce hydrogen
peroxide and convert it to
water
✘ Peroxisomes perform
reactions with many
different functions
The cytoskeleton is a network of fibers
that organizes structures and activities
in the cell
• The cytoskeleton is a network of
fibers extending throughout the
cytoplasm
• It organizes the cell’s structures and
activities, anchoring many organelles
• It is composed of three types of
molecular structures
• Microtubules
• Microfilaments
• Intermediate filaments
Roles of the Cytoskeleton:
Support and Motility
• The cytoskeleton helps to
support the cell and maintain
its shape
• It interacts with motor
proteins to produce motility
• Inside the cell, vesicles can
travel along “monorails”
provided by the
cytoskeleton
• Recent evidence suggests that
the cytoskeleton may help
regulate biochemical activities
Components of the
Cytoskeleton
• Three main types of fibers make up
the cytoskeleton
– Microtubules are the thickest of
the three components of the
cytoskeleton
– Microfilaments, also called actin
filaments, are the thinnest
components
– Intermediate filaments are
fibers with diameters in a
middle range
 10
m

Column of tubulin dimers

25 nm

  Tubulin dimer
 10
m

Actin subunit

7 nm
 5
m

Keratin proteins
Fibrous subunit (keratins
coiled together)
812 nm