Cellular organelles: What are, functions and examples

Organists, organelles or cellular organelles are Membranous structural units with specialized functions, which are found in the Interior of the cells and allow its correct operation. All cells have organelles, but not all have the same types, in the same proportion or at the same time. There are organelles typical of eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells and, in turn, there are organelles typical of animal, plant, fungal, protist, arches and bacterial cells.

All cell organelles of a cell contained in your cytoplasm. They are surrounded by the Plasma membrane or cell membrane, which allows delimiting and differentiating a cell and its organelles from another. Likewise, each cellular organelle is delimited by its own membrane, which allows it to fulfill its functions properly.

If you want to learn more on the cell topic, do not hesitate to read this article that we recommend about the types of cells that exist.

Cellular organelles are responsible for performing all cell processes. Without organelles, the cells could not carry out their vital cycles or fulfill their functions within an organism (the latter in the case of cells that make up multicellular organisms). Depending on the kingdom, the species and the type of cell, it will have certain cellular organelles specifically adapted to meet their needs and allow it to fulfill its functions. An example of this are the organelles of the animal cell and the organelles of the plant cell.

All cells, without exception, breathe, nourish, reproduce, synthesize compounds, communicate with other cells, interact with their environment and perform other types of metabolic processes several catabolism or digestion. These “generic” processes are given by them Types of organelles cell phones in the vast majority of cases:

• The cell nucleus or nucleoid: Depending on whether we talk about eukaryotic cells or prokaryotic cells, we will refer to cell nucleus or nucleoid. Both contain the DNA that allows the cell to reproduce. Know more about the difference between eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell in this post of Ecology Verde.
• The plasma membrane: It allows nutrition, excretion, interaction with the environment and cellular communication. Here you can learn more about the plasma membrane: what is, functions and structure.
• The ribosomes: synthesize the necessary proteins for cell reproduction. In this link you can learn more about ribosomes: function and structure.
• Cytosol and cell cytoplasm: where all vital substances and organelles are contained for the cell. In this article you can expand your knowledge about cytoplasm: what is, function and structure.

Cellular breathing

In the eukaryotic cellsfor example, the most common type of breathing is Aerobic breathing. In the cytoplasm of these cells are mitochondria, which are organelles that synthesize ATP, supply energy and allow cellular respiration to be possible.

In the case of prokaryotic cellsthere may be both aerobic breathing and Anaerobic breathing. In either case, the presence of the ATP is needed, a molecule that brings energy to the cell and allows breathing to be possible. In the cell cytoplasm of prokaryotic cells there are all substances and mechanisms to obtain substances necessary to synthesize the ATP.

In this post you can read more about cellular breathing: what is, stages and types.

Other processes

There are processes that are exclusive to some types of cells, such as photosynthesis, fermentation, chemosynthesis and nitrogen fixation. All processes that are not common for all types of cells are given by specialized organelles typical of these cellswhich are perfectly adapted to perform these functions. Let’s look at some examples:

• Chloroplasts: plant cells and autotrophic protist cells perform oxygenic photosynthesis. To carry out this process, chloroplasts, organelles of photosynthetic eukaryotic cells whose main function is precisely allowing photosynthesis are necessary. Here you can learn better chloroplasts: what are, structure and function and if you want to know more about photosynthesis: what is, process and importance, you can read this article that we recommend.
• Chlorosomes: Green sulfur bacteria are anoxigenic photosynthetic prokaryotic cells. To perform photosynthesis need chlorosomes, which are organelles that contain certain photosynthetic pigments indispensable for the process.
• Wöroning bodies: Filamentous fungi make up networks called hyphae. The fungal cells that make up the hyphae usually have more than one nucleus, and have a type of exclusive cellular organelo of this type of fungi: Wöroning’s bodies. Its function is to separate the septa between each cell that forms the hyphae when necessary.

According to their cellular structure, the types of organelles that it possesses, the class of processes and metabolisms that it carries out and the way in which it is grouped and/or interact with other types of cells and with their surroundings, the cells can be eukaryotes or prokaryotes, and in turn, animals, vegetable, fungal, protists, arches or bacterial. To learn about the parts of the plant cell and the parts of the animal cell, you can read these articles of Ecology Verde.

The eukaryotic cells They are classified in Animal cells, plant cells, fungal cells and protist cells. Therefore, eukaryotic cells make up eukaryotic organisms and are a lot more complex than prokaryotic cells. They are characterized by having a defined cell core with wrap and nucleolus, in which the genetic material of the cell is contained. In addition, they have a wide variety of organelles that are not present in prokaryotic cells, such as mitochondria, Golgi apparatus and endoplasmic reticles.

There are characteristic organelles of the animal cell, such as centers, centrioles, lysosomes, acrosomes and melanosomes. There are also characteristic organelles of the plant cell, such as cell wall, chloroplasts, leukoplasts and chromoplast.

Next, we will see some examples of organelles of eukaryotic cells:

• Cell core (with cell envelope and nucleolus). In this link you can see a summary about the cell nucleus: what is, characteristics, parts and function.
• Plasma or cytoplasmic membrane.
• Ribosomes.
• Mitochondria. In this other post we tell you more about mitochondria: function and structure.
• Vacuolas
• Golgi apparatus. Here you can read about the Golgi apparatus: definition and function.
• Smooth endoplasmic reticulum. In this article we give you more information about the smooth endoplasmic reticulum: what is and function.
• Rough endoplasmic reticulum. In this link you can read about the rough endoplasmic reticulum: what is and function.
• Peroxisomes
• Centers (in animal, fungal cells and in unicellular eukaryotic organisms). Learn more about this organelle here Centers: Function and structure.
• Centrioles (in animal, fungal cells and in unicellular eukaryotic organisms).
• Lysosomas (only in animal cells). Here you can learn more about lysosomes: definition, characteristics and function.
• Cell wall (in plant, fungal and protist cells).
• Chloroplasts (In photosynthetic plant and eukaryotes).
• Leukoplasts (in photosynthetic plant and eukaryotes).
• Chromoplast (only in plant cells).

Some of the representative structures of eukaryotic cells that are commonly confused with organelles are cytoskeleton, cytoplasm, cilia and flagella. If you want to know more about these cells, do not hesitate to read these articles about the eukaryotic cell: characteristics and its parts and the similarities and differences between animal and plant cell.

Prokaryotic cells are classified as Bacterial archaean cells and cells. They make up the prokaryotic agencies and They are much simpler than eukaryotic cells. They are characterized by having their dispersed genetic material in their cytoplasm, in an area called nucleoid. They have some organelles that are not present in eukaryotic cells, such as chlorosomes and gas vesicles. In general, in prokaryotic cells we can find the following representative cellular organelles:

• Plasma or cytoplasmic membrane.
• Ribosomes
• Gas vesicles.
• Cell wall Here you can know the cell wall better: what is, function and structure.
• Storage granules.
• Chlorosomes (in some photosynthetic bacteria).

Some of the representative structures of prokaryotic cells that are commonly confused with organelles are: cytoskeleton, cytoplasm, capsule, plasmids, carboxisomes, ficobilisomes, magnetosomes, pilis, cilia and flags. Here you can better know the prokaryotic cell: characteristics, parts and functions.

Now that you have learned all this about what cellular organelles and examples of these are, we recommend you to continue reading this other ecology article to understand the phases of the cell cycle.

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