Discovery of Cells

A cell is the smallest unit that can carry out the processes of life. It is the basic unit of all living things,
and all organisms are made up of one or more cells. In addition to having the same basic structure, all
cells carry out similar life processes. These include transport of materials, obtaining and using energy,
waste disposal, replication, and responding to their environment. If you look at living organisms under a
microscope you will see they are made up of cells. The word cell was first used by Robert Hooke, a
British biologist and early microscopist. Hooke looked at thin slices of cork under a microscope. The
structure he saw looked like a honeycomb as it was made up of many tiny units. Hooke’s drawing is
shown in Figure 1.1. In 1665 Hooke published his book Micrographia, in which he wrote:

I could exceedingly plainly perceive it to be all perforated and porous, much like a Honey-comb, but that
the pores of it were not regular these pores, or cells, were indeed the first microscopical pores I ever
saw, and perhaps, that were ever seen, for I had not met with any Writer or Person, that had made any
mention of them before this.

Figure 1.1: Drawing of the structure of cork from as it appeared under the microscope to Robert Hooke.
The first scientific use of the word appears in this book. During the 1670s, the Dutch tradesman Antony
van Leeuwenhoek, shown in Figure 1.2, used microscopes to observe many microbes and body cells.
Leeuwenhoek developed an interest in microscopy and ground his own lenses to make simple
microscopes. Compound microscopes, which are microscopes that use more than one lens, had been
invented around 1595. Several people, including Robert Hooke, had built compound microscopes and
were making important discoveries with them during Leeuwenhoek’s time. These compound
microscopes were very similar to the microscopes in use today. However, Leeuwenhoek was so good at
making lenses that his simple microscopes were able to magnify much more clearly than the compound
microscopes of his day. His microscope’s increased ability to magnify over 200 times is comparable to a
modern compound light microscope. Leeuwenhoek was also very curious, and he took great care in
writing detailed reports of what he saw under his microscope. He was the first person to report
observations of many microscopic organisms. Some of his discoveries included tiny animals such as
ciliates, foraminifera, roundworms, and rotifers, shown in Figure 1.3. He discovered blood cells and was
the first person to see living sperm cells. In 1683, Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Royal Society of London
about his observations on the plaque between his own teeth, ”a little white matter, which is as thick as if
’twere batter.” He called the creatures he saw in the plaque animacules, or tiny animals. This report was
among the first observations on living bacteria ever recorded.

Figure 1.2: Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). His carefully crafted microscopes and insightful
observations of microbes led to the title the "Father of Microscopy."

Figure 1.3: Rotifers, similar to the type that Leeuwenhoek saw under his microscope.

Microscopes

Hooke’s and Leeuwenhoek’s studies and observations filled people with wonder because their studies
were of life forms that were everywhere, but too small to see with the naked eye. Just think how
amazed you would be if you were to read about the first accounts of a newly discovered microorganism
from the moon or Mars. Your first thought might be ”Things can live there?!” which was probably the
first thought of the people who read Hooke’s and Leeuwenhoek’s accounts. The microscope literally
opened up an amazing new dimension in the natural sciences, and became a critical tool in the progress
of biology. Magnifying glasses had been in use since the 1300s, but the use of lenses to see very tiny
objects was a slowly-developing technology. The magnification power of early microscopes was very
limited by the glass quality used in the lenses and the amount of light reflected off the object. These
early light microscopes had poor resolution and a magnification power of about 10 times. Compare this
to the over 200 times magnification that Leeuwenhoek was able to achieve by carefully grinding his own
lenses. However, in time the quality of microscopes was much improved with better lighting and
resolution. It was through the use of light microscopes that the first discoveries about the cell and the
cell theory (1839) were developed. However, by the end of the 19th century, light microscopes had
begun to hit resolution limits. Resolution is a measure of the clarity of an image; it is the minimum
distance that two points can be separated by and still be distinguished as two separate points. Because
light beams have a physical size, it is difficult to see an object that is about the same size as the
wavelength of light. Objects smaller than about 0.2 micrometers appear fuzzy, and objects below that
size just cannot be seen. Light microscopes were still useful, but most of the organelles and tiny cell
structures discussed in later lessons were invisible to the light microscope.

Figure 1.4: Left to right: (a) Hookes light microscope (b) Modern electron microscope.

In the 1950s, a new system was developed that could use a beam of electrons to resolve very tiny
dimensions at the molecular level. Electron microscopes, one of which is shown in Figure 1.4, have been
used to produce images of molecules and atoms. They have been used to visualize the tiny sub-cellular
structures that were invisible to light microscopes. Many of the discoveries made about the cell since
the 1950s have been made with electron microscopes.

The Cell Theory

Later, biologists found cells everywhere. Biologists in the early part of the 19th century suggested that
all living things were made of cells, but the role of cells as the primary building block of life was not
discovered until 1839 when two German scientists, Theodor Schwann, a zoologist, and Matthias Jakob
Schleiden, a botanist, suggested that cells were the basic unit of all living things. Later, in 1858, the
German doctor Rudolf Virchow observed that cells divide to produce more cells. He proposed that all
cells arise only from other cells. The collective observations of all three scientists form the cell theory.
The modern cell theory states that:

 All organisms are made up of one or more cells.

As with any theory, the cell theory is based on observations that over many years upheld the basic
conclusions of Schwann’s paper written in 1839. However, one of Schwann’s original conclusions
stated that cells formed in a similar way to crystals. This observation, which refers to spontaneous
 generation of life, was discounted when Virchow proposed that all cells arise only from other cells.
The cell theory has withstood intense examination of cells by modern powerful microscopes and
other instruments. Scientists use new techniques and equipment to look into cells to discover
additional explanations for how they work.

Cell Shape

The variety of cell shapes seen in prokaryotes and eukaryotes reflects the functions that each cell
has. Each cell type has evolved a shape that best helps it survive and do its job. For example, the
nerve cell in Figure 1.5 has long, thin extensions that reach out to other nerve cells. The extensions
help the nerve cell pass chemical and electrical messages quickly through the body. The spikes on
the pollen grain help it stick to a pollinating insect or animal so that it can be transferred to and
pollinate another flower. The long whip-like flagella (tails) of the algae Chlamydomonas help it swim
in water.

Parts of a Cell

There are many different types of cells, but all cells have a few things in common. These are:

 a cell or plasma membrane

Figure 1.5: Cells come in very different shapes. Left to right, top row: Long, thin nerve cells; biconcave
red blood cells; curved-rod shaped bacteria. Left to right, bottom row: oval, flagellated algae and round,
spiky pollen grains are just a sample of the many shapes.

The cell membrane is the physical boundary between the inside of the cell (intracellular) and its outside
environment (extracellular). It acts almost like the ”skin” of the cell. Cytoplasm is the general term for all
of the material inside the cell. Cytoplasm is made up of cytosol, a watery fluid that contains dissolved
particles and organelles. Organelles are structures that carry out specific functions inside the cell.
Ribosomes are the organelles on which proteins are made. Ribosomes are found throughout the cytosol
of the cell. All cells also have DNA. DNA contains the genetic information needed for building structures
such as proteins and RNA molecules in the cell.

Two Types of Cells

There are two cell types: prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Prokaryotic cells are usually single-celled and
smaller than eukaryotic cells. Eukaryotic cells are usually found in multicellular organisms, but there are
some single-celled eukaryotes.

Prokaryotic Cells

The bacterium in Figure 1.6 is a prokaryote. Prokaryotes are organisms that do not have a cell nucleus
nor any organelles that are surrounded by a membrane. Some cell biologists consider the term
”organelle” to describe membrane-bound structures only, whereas other cell biologists define
organelles as discrete structures that have a specialized function. Prokaryotes have ribosomes, which
are not surrounded by a membrane but do have a specialized function, and could therefore be
considered organelles. Most of the metabolic functions carried out by a prokaryote take place in the
plasma membrane. Most prokaryotes are unicellular and have a cell wall that adds structural support
and acts as a barrier

Figure 1.6: Diagram of a typical prokaryotic cell. Among other things, prokaryotic cells have a plasma
membrane, cytoplasm, ribosomes, and DNA. Prokaryotes do not have membrane-bound organelles or a
cell nucleus.

against outside forces. Some prokaryotes have an extra layer outside their cell wall called a capsule,
which helps them stick to surfaces or to each other. Prokaryotic DNA usually forms a circular molecule
and is found in the cell’s cytoplasm along with ribosomes. Prokaryotic cells are very small; most are
between 1–10 µm in diameter. They are found living in almost every environment on Earth. Biologists
believe that prokaryotes were the first type of cells on Earth and that they are the most common
organisms on Earth today.

Eukaryotic Cells

A eukaryote is an organism whose cells are organized into complex structures by internal membranes
and a cytoskeleton, as shown in Figure 1.7. The most characteristic membrane-bound structure of
eukaryotes is the nucleus. This feature gives them their name, which comes from Greek and means
”true nucleus.” The nucleus is the membrane-enclosed organelle that contains DNA. Eukaryotic DNA is
organized in one or more linear molecules, called chromosomes. Some eukaryotes are single-celled, but
many are multicellular. In addition to having a plasma membrane, cytoplasm, a nucleus and ribosomes,
eukaryotic cells also contain membrane-bound organelles. Each organelle in a eukaryote has a distinct
function. Because of their complex level of organization, eukaryotic cells can carry out many more
functions than prokaryotic cells. The main differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.
Eukaryotic cells may or may not have a cell wall. Plant cells generally have cell walls, while animal cells
do not. Eukaryotic cells are about 10 times the size of a typical prokaryote; they range between 10 and
100 µm in diameter while prokaryotes range between 1 and 10 µm in diameter, as shown in Figure 1.8.
Scientists believe that eukaryotes developed about 1.6 – 2.1 billion years ago. The earliest fossils of
multicellular organisms that have been found are 1.2 billion years old.

Figure 1.7: A eukaryotic cell, represented here by a model animal cell is much more complex than a
prokaryotic cell. Eukaryotic cells contain many organelles that do specific jobs. No single eukaryotic cell
has all the organelles shown here, and this model shows all eukaryotic organelles.

Figure 1.8: The relative scale of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. See how eukaryotic cells are generally
10 to 100 times larger than prokaryotic cells.