Cell (biology)

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Allium cells in different phases of the cell cycle

The cells of eukaryotes (left) and prokaryotes (right)

The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life.[1] Organisms can be classified as unicellular (consisting of a single cell; including most bacteria) or multicellular (including plants and animals). Humans contain about 10 trillion (1013) cells. Most plant and animal cells are between 1 and 100 m and therefore are visible only under the microscope.[2] The cell was discovered by Robert Hooke in 1665. The cell theory, first developed in 1839 by Matthias Jakob Schleiden andTheodor Schwann, states that all organisms are composed of one or more cells, that all cells come from preexisting cells, that vital functions of an organism occur within cells, and that all cells contain the hereditary information necessary for regulating cell functions and for transmitting information to the next generation of cells.[3]

The word cell comes from the Latin cella, meaning "small room". The descriptive term for the smallest living biological structure was coined by Robert Hooke in a book he published in 1665 when he compared the cork cells he saw through his microscope to the small rooms monks lived in.[4]

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1 Anatomy 1.1 Prokaryotic cells 1.2 Eukaryotic cells 2 Subcellular components 2.1 Membrane 2.2 Cytoskeleton 2.3 Genetic material 2.4 Organelles 3 Structures outside the cell membrane 3.1 Cell wall 3.2 Prokaryotic 3.2.1 Capsule 3.2.2 Flagella 3.2.3 Fimbriae (pili) 4.1 Growth and metabolism 4.2 Creation 4.3 Protein synthesis 5 Movement or motility 6 Origins 6.1 Origin of the first cell 6.2 Origin of eukaryotic cells 7 History of research 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

4 Functions

10.1 Textbooks