What does the Cell Wall Do?
Cells are an important part of any living being. These biological units are small building blocks that allows organic and living matter to exist. Animals, plants, insects, bacteria, fungi and human beings could not exist without cells. Even single-celled microorganisms have a cellular structure. Cells are also made up of macroscopic organisms and they help to form larger systems that make up a living being. Cell walls are also an important part of a cell’s structure for some beings. Keep reading so you can learn about cell walls, what they do and how they function
Most Living Creatures have Cell Walls
You might have figured this out already, but plants and human cells are different from each other. However, both cell types have a lot in common. Both types have plenty of similarities such as having a nucleus, golgi and various organelles. However, plant cells have cell walls. Human cells don’t have this feature. You can look directly at plant matter to get an idea about how their cell walls look. As a matter of fact, a plant’s cell wall gives its shape and form. It helps a plant to look distinctively different from humans, animals and other creatures within its environment. By the way, plants aren’t the only beings with a cell wall. Other creatures such as fungi, bacteria and protists also have a cell wall.
Why do plants and most other organisms have a cell wall and not humans or animals?
The main purpose of a cell wall is to hold the inside systems of a plant or microorganism together. Remember that most living beings do not have a skeleton like people and animals. As a result, they need a cell wall to keep their inside parts from spilling out everywhere. Humans and animals have cell membranes and a skeleton that is used for this purpose.
Plant cell walls are very common since plant life is all around us. For the sake of keeping things simple we’ll focus on plant cell walls as an example about how they work. Cell walls are made up of substances such as cellulose which are strong fibers. These are commonly used for plants. Bacterial cell walls are made up of peptidoglycan. This strange sounding substance consist of sugar and amino acids. Chitin, proteins and glucan make up the cell walls for fungi.
There are three parts of a plant’s cell wall and they include middle lamella, the primary cell wall and the secondary cell wall. Most plant cells contain the primary cell wall and the middle lamella. However, not all of them have a secondary cell wall. Just so you will know, the middle lamella is the outer most part of a cell wall. Its purpose is to help cell walls to bind together. The primary cell wall provides the strength and flexibility that a cell wall needs to grow. The secondary cell wall prevents the protective cell wall from over expanding. These three parts of a cell wall help plants to keep their shape and identity within the environment. Other organisms with cell walls don’t have three layers like plants but their walls are just as useful.
What are the functions of the cell wall?
The cell wall has many different functions. Regardless of the living organism, a cell wall controls the direction of a cell’s growth. Using plants once again as the example, they help vegetation to withstand pressure from its inner growing parts. As the inner parts grow, they push against the cell wall. Once again, a cell wall keeps a plant’s inside from spilling from outside of the organism. An organism’s cell wall also controls when a cell divides and grows. This is an important function that determines how big an organism will be and what the type of form it will have once its fully grown.
Cell walls also strongly regulate what will and won’t get into the plant. Cell walls are usually porous. They prevent certain things from getting into a plant and they also keep out other substances as well. Cell walls also allow for communication between a plant’s cells. The wall carries signals from one part of the organism to the next. This allows one part of an organism’s cell to talk to another part of a plant’s system. Viruses and pathogens are also contained by a cell wall. Nutrients and other substances are also contained within this area of the plant. Ultimately, cell walls ensure that certain living creatures can grow and carry out normal life functions that keep organism healthy, alive and thriving.
Article focus: what does cell all do ? | Functions of the cell wall.
