Plant cells have always spurred curiosity amongst biology students, besides others. Hence, here in this article, I have provided some detailed information.
It is a commonly known fact that plants are a highly eukaryotic organism. Their cells are membrane-bound and possess many cell organelles. Cytoplasm and other organelles are very typical cell parts. Many scientific studies have been carried out in order to gain knowledge about various aspects of plants cell parts. Like every mechanical machine, which has dedicated parts for specific functions, plant cell parts also have highly specific and dedicated functions.
Parts and Their Description
Nucleus
It can be called the brain of the plant cell and the most important of all plant cell parts. This is because the cell nucleus performs all the administrative tasks of the cell. It coordinates all the metabolic functions. Cell growth, cell division, and protein synthesis are some of the tasks that are coordinated by the nucleus.
Plastids
Plastids are those plant cells which carry pigments. So, it goes without saying that chloroplast happens to be the most important of all plastids, because they contain green chlorophyll pigments. Chloroplast plastids photosynthesize sunlight and make food for the plants.
Ribosome
These predominantly contain ribonucleic acids (RNA). Their composition contains almost 60% of the ribonucleic acids and 40% of proteins. Ribosomes are those parts that are responsible for the synthesis of proteins in plants.
Mitochondria
Complex carbohydrates and sugars are very difficult to breakdown. The mitochondria is responsible for this task. They break complex carbohydrates into very simple form, which is easily used in plants. They are called the powerhouse of the cell.
Golgi Body
Also known as golgi complex or golgi apparatus, it is used to transport material inside and outside the cell. Golgi body alters and prepares lipids for their transport outside the cell.
Endoplasmic Reticulum
Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) is a network of convulsed sacs, which are in turn interconnected. The cytoplasm of the plant cell and nucleus are connected by the endoplasmic reticulum. There are two types of ER, which are distinguished according to the presence of ribosome. They can be called smooth or rough. Endoplasmic reticulum is that structure which basically transports glycogens, proteins, and other compounds.
Vacuoles
‘Turgor pressure’ is that pressure in a plant cell that helps in maintaining its shape. Vacuoles in all of plant cell parts do the job of maintaining this pressure. Basically, there are many vacuoles, but the centrally located one is larger than the others.
Peroxisomes
Fatty acids have to be broken down metabolically into simple sugar forms. Peroxisomes contain certain oxidative enzymes that are responsible for breaking such fatty acids into simpler forms. Peroxisomes also help chloroplasts in the process of photosynthesis.
In this article, I have tried to explain the parts of a plant cell and the functions very briefly. The coordination of all functionalities in plants are very important for carrying out every metabolic activity.