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A vacuole (/ ˈ v æ k juː oʊ l /) is a membrane-bound organelle which is present in plant and fungal cells and some protist, animal, and bacterial cells. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Vacuoles are essentially enclosed compartments which are filled with water containing inorganic and organic molecules including enzymes in solution , though in certain cases ...
Organelles (literally "little organs") are usually membrane-bound structures inside the cell that have specific functions. Some major organelles that are suspended in the cytosol are the mitochondria , the endoplasmic reticulum , the Golgi apparatus , vacuoles , lysosomes , and in plant cells, chloroplasts .
Compartmentalization is a feature of prokaryotic photosynthetic structures. [2] Purple bacteria have "chromatophores", which are reaction centers found in invaginations of the cell membrane. [2] Green sulfur bacteria have chlorosomes, which are photosynthetic antenna complexes found bonded to cell membranes. [2]
Pigments that color the cell are sometime located in the cell sap. Vacuoles can also increase the size of the cell, which elongates as water is added, and they control the turgor pressure (the osmotic pressure that keeps the cell wall from caving in). Like lysosomes of animal cells, vacuoles have an acidic pH and contain hydrolytic enzymes.
Some cells, most notably Amoeba, have contractile vacuoles, which can pump water out of the cell if there is too much water. The vacuoles of plant cells and fungal cells are usually larger than those of animal cells. Vacuoles of plant cells are surrounded by a membrane which transports ions against concentration gradients.
Cellular compartments in cell biology comprise all of the closed parts within the cytosol of a eukaryotic cell, usually surrounded by a single or double lipid layer membrane. These compartments are often, but not always, defined as membrane-bound organelles. The formation of cellular compartments is called compartmentalization.
By scientific convention, the term lysosome is applied to these vesicular organelles only in animals, and the term vacuole is applied to those in plants, fungi and algae (some animal cells also have vacuoles). Discoveries in plant cells since the 1970s started to challenge this definition. Plant vacuoles are found to be much more diverse in ...
The proportion of cell volume that is cytosol varies: for example while this compartment forms the bulk of cell structure in bacteria, [9] in plant cells the main compartment is the large central vacuole. [10]