How are plant cells similar to animal cells? To bacterial cells?

Question

How are plant cells similar to animal cells? To bacterial cells?

Answer 1

Plant and animal cells are both classified as eukaryotes (along with fungal cells and others), because they have membranes encasing their nuclear (as in nucleus, not power plant) materials (including DNA, associated proteins, and transcription products).

Bacterial cells are classified as prokaryotes (along with archaebacteria), and are separate from eukaryotes because they have no membrane enclosing the nuclear materials.

First, eukaryotic cells all contain similar membrane bound organelles, except for several key differences:

1. Animal cells have organelles called centrioles that are involved in mitosis, while plants do not posses them. Animal cells can also have flagella that assist in cell motility, while plant cells cannot.

2. Plant cells have a rigid cell wall in addition to a plasma membrane, while animal cells only have a plasma membrane. This means that plant cells are able to maintain their shape, while animal cells are easily deformable.

3. Plant and animals cells both contain vacuoles, but the vacuoles in plant cells are much larger than in animal cells.

4. Both plant and animal cells contain organelles called mitochondria that provide energy for the cell. However, plants also contain chloroplasts (generally in greater numbers than mitrochondria) that also produce energy for the cell, while animal cells do not.

Second, the differences between eukaryotes like plant and animal cells and prokaryotes like bacteria are also important:

1. Prokaryotes generally do not contain membrane bound organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts, and instead produce their energy using proteins embedded in their plasma membrane.

2. Prokaryotes are generally much smaller in size than eukaryotes.

3. Both prokaryotes and eukaryotes posses internal structures including vaculoes and cytoskeletons.

4. Prokaryotes and eukaryotes both contain ribosomes, which are involved in translation and protein production.

5. Prokaryotic DNA is organized into circular loop structures called plasmids, while eukaryotic DNA is organized into chromosomes.

Hopefully this is a good start to answering your question, but there is a great deal of information regarding this topic. Check out some of the links below to view pictures and more in depth discussion of the two groups' relationship.

Answer 2

plant and animal cells have very similar organelles: mitochondria, bound nucleus, cell membrane, etc.

here's diagrams that show this:

http://sun.menloschool.org/~cweaver/cell...

plant & bacteria cells have cell walls. bacteria also have some of the same structures, though they do not have a bound nucleus:

http://www.molecularexpressions.com/cell...