Cell - The Basic Unit of Life.

Cell

The cell is taken from Latin word cella which means meaning "small room. It is the
structural and functional unit of life. Cells are considered to be the smallest unit of life. Cells
can replicate independently. Cells are also known as building blocks of life

Discovery of Cell

Cell is one of the most important discovery in the field of biology. The credit for the cell
discovery was given to Robert Hooke. He discovered cell in 1665.

Cell Theory

Cell theory was first given by Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann in 1839.This
theory states:

1. All organisms are consist of one or more cells.

2. The cells are the structural and functional unit in all living organisms,
3. Every cell comes from pre-existing cell. The Cell contain the genetic information which is
essential for regulating cell activities and for transmitting information from one generation to
another generation of cells.

Composition of Cell

Cell is consist of cytoplasm enclosed within a membrane. Cytoplasm contains so many

biomolecules like nucleic acids and proteins.
Lets see the structure of cell, which is given below:

In the above picture you can see the different organelles that are present in cell like nucleus,
ribosomes, mitochondrion, vacuoles, endoplasmic reticulum, lysosomes etc.

Classification of Cells

Organisms can be classified as unicellular and multicellular.

1. Unicellular organisms Unicellular organism are consist of only single cell for
e.g. bacteria.

2. Multicellular Organism - Multicellular organism are consist of multiple cells for

e.g. plants and animals.

The number of cells in animals and plants varies from one species to another species. If we talk
about humans, so in human body there are more than 10 trillion (1013) cells. We can see plant
and animal cells with our naked eye, they are visible under microscope, with dimensions in
between 1 and 10m.

Types of Cells

Cells are basically of two types:

Eukaryotic Cells: Eukaryotic cells are those cells which contain a definite nucleus.

Prokaryotic Cells: Cells which do not contain definite nucleus are known as prokaryotic cells.
Prokaryotes are single-cellular organisms. While eukaryotes can be single-cellular
or multicellular.
Summary

Cell is the basic unit of life. It is known as structural and functional unit of life. All organisms
are consist of one or more cell. The cells are consist of oraganelles like nucleus, ribosomes,
lysosomes, mitochondrion etc. Cells are classified as unicellular and multicellular and if we talk
about types of cell, so cells are two types that is prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.