The Cell Theory

“
INQUIRY QUESTION:
“What distinguishes one cell from
another?”
 CONTENT TO BE COVERED
◉ The Cell Theory
○ What is the Cell Theory?
○ Biological views prior to the proposal of the Cell Theory
○ Development of the cell theory and the scientists that have contributed to this theory
◉ The Significance of technological advances to the development in the cell theory
○ Light microscope
○ Electron microscope
◉ Techniques used in Microscopy
 The Cell Theory
The cell theory forms the basis of all biology. In its universally accepted form, it
states that:
1. All living things are made of cells
2. Cells are the basic structural and functional unit of organisms
3. All cells come from pre-existing cells
Biological view prior to the proposal of the Cell Theory
 Spontaneous Generation
◉ SPONTANEOUS GENERATION - theory
predicted that living creatures could arise from
inanimate (non-living) materials
◉ This idea dated back to the time of Aristotle and the
evidence was based on observation
◉ It was until the 1600s that scientist suggested
differently
Spontaneous Generation

TIME
Spontaneous Generation

TIME
 Spontaneous Generation
◉ 1668 - Francesco Redi
◉ First recorded experiment that opposed the theory of
spontaneous generation
 Spontaneous Generation
◉ 1668 - Francesco Redi
 The Invention of the Compound Microscope

◉ Late 1500s
◉ Scientists were using poor quality magnifying glasses to view small (‘minute’) objects
 The Invention of the Compound Microscope

◉ Two Dutch lens makers, a father and son named Hans and Zacharia Janssen.
◉ Credited with the first compound microscope in 1590
 The Invention of the Compound Microscope

◉ A simple microscope uses only one lens to magnify an object

viewed
◉ Invention of the compound microscope relied on the principle
of using two lenses, kept at a set distance apart
 Terms
The Invention to Understand
of the Compound Microscope

MAGNIFICATION RESOLUTION
◉ The ability to enlarge an image ◉ The ability to show fine detail
 Improvements to the Compound Microscope

◉ 17th Century
◉ The Janssens designed the first hand-held tube mounted onto
a stand
◉ This was the beginning of the microscope designs we use
today
 Improvements to the Compound Microscope

◉ Robert Hooke’s compound

microscope was
progressive for its time
 Improvements to the Compound Microscope

◉ Used a fine adjustment knob to move the tube

holding the lenses up and down
◉ His microscope also had a light source to
illuminate the specimen
BIOLOGICAL VIEW: Understanding living things using a
microscope
 Robert Hooke
◉ 1665 - Robert Hooke
◉ Produced a book, the first recorded publication to describe
observations of living tissue using a microscope
 Robert Hooke
◉ It was in this book that he used
the term ‘cell’ to describe the
‘honeycomb’ elements (units)
of cork
 Robert Hooke
◉ He was observing dead plant
cells which had no contents and
clearly resembled small
compartments, similar to the
cells used by monks
 Robert Hooke
◉ Hooke’s findings were respected, but not
universally accepted by scientists at that time
◉ The low quality of this images meant that
many scientists were sceptical about the
‘artificial images’ created
 Anton van Leeuwenhoek
◉ Anton van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch lens maker
whose grinding technique was far superior to that of his
contemporaries
◉ He was able to produce lenses of much higher quality
 Anton van Leeuwenhoek
◉ Between 1674 and 1683 with crystals, quartz and
even diamond lenses, he developed a simple
microscope.
◉ Used a single, powerful lens that could magnify up
to 300x, perhaps more.
 Anton van Leeuwenhoek
◉ Leeuwenhoek discovered many single-celled living
things and referred to them as “animalcules”
◉ No cell theory at the time, so van Leeuwenhoek had
no framework in which to accurately name or
describe his findings
 Anton van Leeuwenhoek
◉ Hooke confirmed van Leeuwenhoek’s findings
of microscopic living things
◉ Van Leeuwenhoek was credited with discovering
bacteria, and from his description, may have
even seen nuclei
 Robert Brown
◉ Robert Brown (1773-1858), an English botanist, found that
every plant cell he looked at had an opaque spot which he
called a nucleus
 Robert Brown
◉ 1828 - Brown stated that cells were a general phenomenon and contained a cell nucleus

◉ Although the nucleus had previously been observed

before, by van Leeuwenhoek, it was Brown who
noted it occurred in numerous cells.
 Schwann & Schleiden
◉ 1838 - Theodor Schwann and Matthias Schleiden
 Schwann & Schleiden
◉ As Schleiden (a botanist) described the
regular placement of nuclei that he had
observed in plant cells.
◉ Schwann (a zoologist) recognised
similarity to the animal cells that he had
been studying
 Schwann & Schleiden
◉ It was the first time that a common basic structure for all living things had become
evident
 Schwann & Schleiden
◉ A year later (1839) Schwann published a book on plant and animal cells, listing three
main conclusions, two of which are still accepted today as the basis for the cell theory:
1. The cell is the unit structure of all living things
2. The cell exists as a distinct entity and as a building block in the construction of
organisms
◉ Their third conclusion - “Cells form by free-cell formation, similar to the formation of
crystals”, was later found to be invalid
 Rudolf Virchow
◉ The accepted version of how cells arise is attributed to a
German medical scientist, Rudolf Virchow
 Rudolf Virchow
◉ 1855 - His studies led to his statement that: “Where a cell arise, a cell must have
previously existed”
◉ From this derived the accepted their statement of the cell theory”
3. All cells come from pre-existing cells
 Rudolf Virchow
◉ Virchow had not only discovered cell division but, by implying that living things could
not arise from non-living elements, had refuted spontaneous generation
 Walther Flemming
◉ 1879 - Walther Flemming confirmed Virchow’s
observations and named the process of division mitosis
The Significance of Technological Advances to the
Developments in the Cell Theory
 The Importance of the Microscope
◉ The Cell Theory would not have been possible without the
microscope
 Types of Microscopes
◉ There are two main types of
microscopes:
○ Those that use light to view
specimens
○ Those that use subatomic
particle called electrons
 Light vs. Electron Microscopes
◉ Although some parts of the cell can be viewed using a light microscope, the smaller
parts cannot be clearly seen.
○ Wavelength of visible light are too large to magnify and resolve (separate) very
small objects
○ Wavelength of electrons is smaller and so the electron microscope can be used to
view the find structure of a cell on a screen
Components of a Light Microscope
Light Microscope used in Highschool
 Components of a Light Microscope

◉ Compound light microscopes used today have an objective lens, which is placed over
the microscope slide containing the specimen.
○ It collects light passing through or around the
object and forms a magnified image of it
 Components of a Light Microscope

◉ A second lens, the ocular lens (eyepiece), is placed at the top of a tube or barrel and
close to the observer
○ It collects the magnified image from the objective lens
and further magnifies this image (10x)
 Advantages of Light Microscopes

◉ By the 1880s, the light microscope

had been perfected.
◉ This is based on light shining from a
source through a thin section of the
sample to be observed, through
various lenses and then into the eye.
 Advantages of Light Microscopes

◉ The light microscope has a number of advantages:

○ Cheap
○ Small and portable
○ Both living and dead things can be observed
 Disadvantages of Light Microscopes

◉ The disadvantages of the light microscope include:

○ Poor resolution
○ Magnification is low (up to 1500x)
 Advances in Light Microscope Technology

◉ 1870s - oil immersion lenses were introduced by Zeiss and Abbe, enabling a good
image of up to 1500x magnification to be seen
 Advances in Light Microscope Technology

◉ By the 1890s, the top-level microscopes

of the time were fairly similar to their
view capacity to the current senior
school microscopes
 The Electron Microscope

◉ The next big breakthrough in our knowledge of cells was as a

result of the invention (1933) and advancement of the
electron microscope
 The Electron Microscope
◉ With this technology images are produced using a beam of
electrons
◉ Modifications to the designs have had to be made because
electrons do not normally travel in a manner similar to light,
but bounce off anything that they hit.
◉ The electrons must therefore pass through the specimen in a
vacuum, making it possible to view only non-living preserved
tissue
 The Scanning Electron Microscope
◉ 1995 - The invention of the scanning electron microscope
◉ The electron beam causes the specimen to emit its own
electrons, producing a three-dimensional image (but it
has a low resolution)
 Advantages of the Electron Microscope

◉ The advantages of the electron microscope are:

○ Higher magnification (up to 1 million
times)
○ Higher resolution
 Disadvantages of the Electron Microscope

◉ Disadvantages include:
○ Very expensive
○ Large and not portable
○ Living materials cannot be viewed as specimens must be placed in a vacuum,
stained, dehydrated and impregnated with plastic, which may result in some
distortion of the cell appearance
Techniques for preparing specimens for viewing
 Techniques for Preparing Specimens

◉ The preparation of tissue for viewing under microscopes has

become an integral part of microscopes
○ As microscopes improved, technology for specimen
preparation has had to keep up.
 Techniques for Preparing Specimens

● Very thin sections of living tissues are mostly

transparent, so the structure is difficult to observe
unless some contrast is created between the tissue
and its background.
 Historical Evidence of Specimen Preparation

◉ Robert Hooke noticed that he could get a clearer view of his cork cells if he cut section
very thinly to allow the light to pass through it
 Historical Evidence of Specimen Preparation

◉ The use of dyes to stain tissue and improve visibility in

specimens began in the later 1770s, but it was in the
1880s, that Walther Flemming, using synthetic dyes,
named the material that become mostly strongly stained:
Chromatin material
 Historical Evidence of Specimen Preparation

◉ In 1888, Wilhelm Waldeyer-Hertz named

the shortened threads of chromatin,
chromosomes (chromo = coloured; soma
= body)
Current Biological Research: Technology and the Cell Theory
 Further Development in the Cell Theory

◉ The development of the electron microscope has allowed scientists to study the
ultrastructure of cells (parts smaller than can be seen with a light microscope)
◉ Electron microscopes are now also linked to computers; this allows the study of
subcellular structures in enormous details, providing evidence of their functioning
 Further Development in the Cell Theory

◉ This technology is also used in the areas of genetic and ecology, providing evidence
which has resulted in modern biologists adding a further three statements to the original
cell theory:
4. Cells contain hereditary information which is passed on during cell division
5. All cells have the same basic chemical composition
6. All energy flow (resulting from chemical reactions) of life occurs within cells