Lab 2: Animal and Plant Cells

Lab 2: Animal and Plant Cells

Purpose: To examine the differences between single cell and multi cell organisms in terms of Animal and Plant cells.

Question: What are the differences between multi and single celled plant and animal organisms?

Prediction:
Spirogyra Cell: The parts of the spirogyra cell that will be visible under the microscope will be; cell wall, cell membrane, nucleus, chloroplasts, vacuole and cytoplasm.
Banana Cell: The parts of the banana cell that will be visible under the microscope will be; cell wall, cell membrane, nucleus, vacuole and cytoplasm.
Tomato Cell: The parts of the tomato cell that will be visible will be; cell wall, cell membrane, nucleus, vacuole and cytoplasm.
Paramecium Cell: The parts of the paramecium cell that will be visible will be; cell wall, cilia, nucleus and mitochondrion.
Smooth Muscle Cell: The parts of the smooth muscle cell that will be visible will be; cell membrane, nucleus and mitochondrion.

Design: The first action taken in this lab was the recording of predictions of what will be visible in the cell under the microscope. The next action taken was viewing a spirogyra cell under a microscope at 40x magnification to focus it. Then the ocular lens was rotated to the 100x magnification and a picture was recorded of what was visible under such magnification, after the slide had been focused. After recording the picture, the ocular lens was rotated to 400x magnification and another picture was recorded of what was visible under the microscope, once again after the slide had been focused. After the 100x magnification and also the 400x magnification, and estimation was recorded of how many cells fit across the field of view. The same process was followed for the banana cell, tomato cell, paramecium cell and smooth muscle cell, with the tomato slide being stained with methylene blue solution, and the banana stained with Lugol's solution, both to highlight certain cell parts. The independent variables was the microscope. The dependent variables were the microscope slides of the spirogyra, tomato, banana, paramecium and smooth muscle slides.

Materials: Refer to page 21-22 of Nelson Biology 11. Changes: Spirogyra, Paramecium used instead of Elodea and Cheek Epithelium slides.

Procedure: Refer to page 21-22 of Nelson Biology 11. Changes: Slides described above were used.

Observations: Refer to attached Observations.

Analysis:
a) The arrangement of plant and animal cells differ in several different ways. Plant cells have a visible cell wall with a cell membrane on the inside of that cell wall. In the examples reviewed in the lab, the general layout of plant cells seems to be much more dense than the animal cells, in the sense that there are many more in a smaller area.
b)
Cell Name Magnification # of Cells in Field of View
Spirogyra 100x 12 down, 13 across
Spirogyra 400x 7 down, 8 across
Tomato 100x 7 down, 5 across
Tomato 400x 1.15 down, 1.25 across
Banana 100x 38 down, 38 across
Banana 400x 4 down, 3 across
Paramecium 100x 15 down, 14 across
Paramecium 400x 6 down, 4 across
Smooth Muscle 100x 11 down, 20 across
Smooth Muscle 400x 1 down, 12 across
It appears that in general that the tomato cell is largest of all the cells studied, proving that the plant cells seem to be larger.
c) The spirogyra has smaller cells than the tomato cells, which makes the cell parts more difficult to see. In the spirogyra at 400x magnification, only the cell nucleus and a cell wall are visible, but there are also approximately 9 cells that fit across the field of view, whereas the tomato cell at 400x magnification, only one cell can fit in the field of view. Also since the tomato cell is stained with methylene blue solution, the cell wall, and nucleus are very visible. The tomato cells do not appear to have any chloroplasts because the cells no longer need them since they are not completing photosynthesis anymore, as they are fruits removed from the vine which applied all their nutrients.
d) Their shape is so different between the two animal cells because their shape is determined by the function that the cell is required to perform. The muscles cells are required to be very flexible whereas the paramecium cells are simply single cell organisms.
e) The methylene blue stained the stained the cytoplasm, the cell membrane, and the mitochondria in the tomato cell.
f) The Lugol's solution stained the starch molecules, the nucleus, mitochondria, cell wall, and cytoplasm in the banana cell.
g) Careers that would make use of the knowledge learned in this lab would be any career at all that would need to look at the parts of cells in order to understand how complexes work and careers that would also need to stain those cell parts to distinguish them, such as microbiology.

Conclusion: In conclusion of this lab, it is quite evident that the differences in single cell and multi cell organisms in both plants and animal cells have different determining factors in what they are composed of and how they look. Many of the cells are composed of the same basic cell parts, but vary in composition depending on the task that the cell is supposed to serve. The spirogyra cell did have a distinguishable cell wall, cytoplasm and nucleus but the cell membrane, cholorplasts and vacuoles were not visible under the magnification usable. Like the spirogyra, the banana cell had few parts visible under the microscope. The parts visible were the nucleus, mitochondria, nucleus, cytoplasm, cell wall and one that was not expected, which was starch granules, visible due to the Lugol's solution. In the tomato cell, there was very little visible, only the cell wall, cytoplasm and mitochondria, made more easily visible by the methylene blue solution. In the paramecium cell there was a lot that was clearly visible under the microscope, such as the macronucleus, micronucleus, a contractile vacuole, a cell membrane, the cytoplasm, and an anal pore, as well as what looks like cilia. This is far more than the standard knowledge of a cell would allow you to predict to be in a cell, therefore that prediction was quite off. Lastly the muscle cell was difficult to view different cell parts in. Easily viewable in the muscle cell was the numerous nuclei that muscle cells contain. Sources of error exist in the measurement of the cells (through the estimation process) and the recording of the pictures of the cells themselves, as well as the identification of the parts inside the specific cell being studied. This lab is relevant to many career opportunities, many of those being general research and the attempt to be able to cure different diseases, simply for the reason that it is required to know the cell parts and be able to identify them clearly.