A Closer Look at Animal Cells Plant Cells

Diego Aldana, Brianna Xavier November 03, 2010 Lab Title: Cells A Closer Look at Animal Cells and Plant Cells Problem/Purpose: The purpose is to observe the differences and similarities of animal and plant cells under a compound microscope. Background: Animal and plant cells are different in a few ways. Animal cells dont have cell walls unlike a plant cell. A plant cell also has a rectangular shape and an animal cell has a more of a circular shape. I know that the cell wall gives the cell a rigid structure therefore making the cell boxy like. An animal cell has a cell membrane not a cell wall. The membrane flows freely and doesnt have a rigid and stiff structure like a plant cell. Both animal and plant cells have nuclei. The Nucleus is usually found in the center of the cell and is the control room of the cell. Animal and plant cells share must of the same organelles. Plant cells have a few organelles that arent found in animal cells though, like the Vacuole and Chloroplast. Hypothesis: I think I will be able to see the vacuole, chloroplast, nucleus, and the rectangular structure of the plant cell and not in an animal cell. In the animal cell I will see the nucleus and the cell membrane. Materials: Microscope Microscope Slide Cover Slide Pipette Forceps Onion Beaker Lugols Solution Toothpicks Methylene Blue Yogurt (optional) Spoon (optional)

Procedure: Part 1: Plant Cell Observation 1. Remove a piece of onion and snap the leaf backward. This will provide a layer of paper-thin transparent epidermis on the edge of the broken leaf. 2. With the forceps or your fingers, carefully peel off a layer of epidermis. 3. Place a drop of water on a clean microscope slide. 4. Evenly spread a small piece of the epidermis is a drop of water on a clean microscope slide. Smooth out any wrinkles as best as you can. 5. Add a cover slip 6. Examine the cells under the low-power objective of your microscope. 7. Draw what you observe under low-power in one of the circles on your microscope drawings and observations record sheet. Draw and label all of the parts of the cell you can identify. 8. Remove the cover slip and blot (pat) the specimen dry with a piece of paper towel. 9. Add one drop of Lugols solution to the onion skin and carefully replace the cover slip. Caution: Iodine will stain your hands and clothes and is toxic if ingested. 10. Observe the slide under low-power again. 11. Rotate the nose piece to the medium objective and examine the cells again. 12. Draw what you observe under medium-power in one of the circles on your microscopes drawings and observation record sheet. . Draw and label all of the parts of the cell you can identify. 13. Identify the thick cell wall around the cell. It is made mostly of cellulose. On the inside of the cell wall is the cell membrane, which encloses the cytoplasm. Part 1 Questions: 1. What is the general shape of the cells? The general shape of the cells is rectangular. A few other cells have rounded edges; otherwise most of the cells had a rectangular shape. 2. What do you observe that indicates that these cells are plant cells? Well for one, the cells are rectangular shaped and form a straight edge; where the onion leaf ends. The walls of the cells are also thick and that indicates that the cells are plant cells. 3. Compare the thickness of the cell wall and the cell membrane. The cell wall is twice as big as the cell membrane. Lugols solution makes it a bit difficult to tell the difference between the cell wall and cell membrane, it makes the wall and membrane look as one big, thick wall.

Part II: Animal Cell Observation: Procedure: 1. Put one drop of Methylene blue on a clean slide. Caution: Methylene blue will stain clothes and Skin 2. Gently scrape the inside of your cheek with the flat side of a toothpick. 3. Stir the end of the toothpick into the stain and throw the toothpick away. 4. Place the slip on the slide 5. Observe the cells under low-power. Cells should be visible, but they will be small and look like dark blue blobs. If you are looking at something dark purple or totally clear it is probably not a cell. 6. Draw what you observe under low-power in one of the circles on your microscope drawings and observations record sheet. Draw and label all of the parts of the cell you can identify. 7. Switch to medium power and observe the cells again. 8. Draw what you observe under medium-power in one of the circles on your microscope drawings and observations record sheet. Draw and label all of the parts of the cell you can identify. Part II Questions: 4. Why is Methylene blue necessary? It is necessary so that the cells can be seen clearly under the microscope. 5. Cheek cells do not move on their own, so you will not find tow organelles that function for cell movement. Name these two organelles. The two structures that help the cells move are flagella and cilia. Flagella are long hair- like structures that help in cell movement. Cilia are similar but surround the whole cell and are much smaller hair-like structures. 6. The light microscope used in the lab is not powerful enough to view the other organelles in the cheek cell. What parts of the cell were visible? The cell membrane and nucleus are the only structures visible under the microscope. 7. List two organelles that were not visible but should have been in the cheek cell. The mitochondria and lysosome are two organelles that are not visible but should be in the cheek cell. The mitochondrion provides the cell with energy to fulfill its tasks. The lysosomes function is to keep the cell clean and to destroy the cell when it no longer functions. Observations & Data: The first cells that I observed were the cells of an onion. An onion is a plant therefore it is made up of plant cells. Under low-power the plant cells seemed very small and tightly compacted. All the cells were rectangular looking and the only thing that could be seen was the cell walls of each cell. Neither the nucleus nor any other organelle was visible, as shown in my sketch of an onion cell under low-power (drawing 1).

My second look at the onion cell was under high-power and dyed with Lugols Solution (iodine). The iodine made the onion cells turn yellow and the nucleus black. The cell wall, cell membrane, and nucleus were clearly visible under high-power. Most of the cells were rectangular shaped; others also had straight sides but didnt form a rectangle as seen in my sketch of the onion cells under high-power (drawing 2). The second cells I observed were my own cheek cells, dyed with Methylene blue. The first time I observed them was under low-power. The cells looked like blue blobs and were scattered around in no real structure. My sketch of the cheek cells (drawing 3) shows the cells and their circular shape. My second look at the specimen was under high-power making the nucleus and cell membrane visible. The cell membrane isnt as thick as the cell wall in the previous slides. The cells arent completely circular but have some sort of round structure. Not all the cells are attached to each other. The last sketch (drawing 4) is a drawing of my cheek cell under high-power. Conclusion: At the end of the lab I found out that the main difference between animal and plant cells is the cell wall and the shapes of each cell. Drawings 2 and 4 really show the differences between the two cells. Yes the results make sense because animal cells dont have cell walls, and the cell wall is also responsible for the rectangular structure, which an animal cell lacks. My hypothesis stated that the vacuole, and the chloroplast would be seen in the plant cell and the nucleus and the cell membrane would be seen in the animal cell. The vacuole and chloroplast were not seen in the plant cell as shown in drawings 1 and 2. The only structures visible are the nucleus and cell wall. The cell membrane and nucleus were visible in the animal cells supported by drawings 3 and 4. There were two possible errors during the lab. 1. Too much iodine and/or Methylene blue were added to the onion and/or cheek cell. 2. There is a possibility that some of the animal cells in drawing 3 could have been Methylene blue drops. To further observe the differences between these two cells, a stronger microscope can be used to identify structures that are present in plant cells and not in animals like vacuoles and chloroplasts. We could also observer cell division to see how each cell divides and whether they divide in the same way.