Build a labeled cell diagram for a prokaryotic, animal or plant cell. Click any organelle to see what it does, and compare which organelles are notably absent from each cell type.
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The Cell Diagram Builder draws a labeled cell diagram for any of the three cell types students are asked to compare: prokaryotic (bacterial), animal and plant. Pick a cell type and every organelle is placed on the outline and labeled, with a one-line description of what it does.
It also shows what is missing. Because the organelle set is the union across all three cell types, the builder can call out that plant cells have a cell wall, chloroplasts and a large central vacuole while animal cells do not, that animal cells have centrioles and lysosomes while most plant cells do not, and that prokaryotes have no membrane-bound organelles at all.
A plant cell has a rigid cellulose cell wall, chloroplasts for photosynthesis, a large central vacuole and plasmodesmata connecting neighbouring cells. Animal cells have none of these four structures.
Animal cells contain centrioles, which organise the spindle during cell division, and lysosomes packed with digestive enzymes. Most plant cells have neither: the large central vacuole performs the analogous digestive role.
Prokaryotes have no membrane-bound organelles at all: no nucleus, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, lysosomes or chloroplasts. They have a cell wall, a plasma membrane, cytoplasm, 70S ribosomes and a nucleoid region holding their circular chromosome.
A nucleus is a true membrane-bound compartment found only in eukaryotes. A nucleoid is simply the region of prokaryotic cytoplasm where the circular chromosome sits, with no membrane around it.
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