Animal Cell Lab Report

Kimberly Ann A. Leorag Zool104L Date performed: 2016-06-20

BS Bio IV Date submitted: 2016-06-27

”Animal Cell Structure and Function”

Exercise 1

Introduction

Cellular physiology requires a review on cellular anatomy. The structures of animal cells is composed by plasma membrane and contains the nucleus and other organelles. These structures are key to understanding the physiological processes the cell undertakes as a whole. Animal cells are multicellular. They are eukaryotic cells. They are varied in terms of sizes and shapes, mostly ranging between 1 and 100 micrometers and visible only through a microscope. They differ with plant cells because animal cells lack cell walls and chloroplasts, and have smaller vacuoles. Due to the

It is composed almost entirely of proteins and lipids (approximate composition of proteins, 55 %; phospholipids, 25%; cholesterol, 13%; other lipids, 4%; and carbohydrates, 3%) (Guyton & Hall, 2015). Cells need to be small because they rely on diffusion for getting substances into and out of cells. When a cell grows, there is comparatively less membrane for the substances to diffuse through resulting in the center of the cell not receiving the substances that it needs. Diffusion is less efficient, cell processes slow down and the cell stops growing. The cell then needs to divide into 2 smaller cells, which each have a larger surface area-to-volume ration and can diffuse materials more efficiently

These sheets are held together through several types of interactions, including tight junctions, adherens, desmosomes, and gap junctions. One type of junction found only in epithelium is the tight junction, which is considered by most scientists as the closest junction in the world. Tight junctions act as the margin between the apical (upper) and basal (lower) regions of an epithelial cell in conjunction with polarization between the two regions. Epithelium is supported on the basal side by a basement membrane called the basal lamina. Below the basal lamina lies the capillary bed, which provides epithelia with required nutrients and disposal of waste products. In addition, the nucleus in the epithelial cell is usually found closer to the basal surface than the apical