PRACTICAL 3: OBSERVATION OF ANIMAL CELL

INTRODUCTION

All living things are made from one or more cells. The cell is the simplest unit of life.
They are important for keeping an organism alive. Cells are the basic unit of life and
these microscopic structures work together and perform all the necessary functions
to keep an animal alive. There are two types of cells which are plant cell and animal
cell. There is an enormous range of animal cells. Each is adapted to a perform
specific functions, such as carrying oxygen, contracting muscles, secreting mucus,
or protecting organs. The cells of animals are advanced and complex. Cells carry out
all the processes of the body, including producing and storing energy, and making
proteins, which are molecules. Animal cells are different from plant cells because
they don't have cell walls and chloroplasts, which are relevant to plant cells. Without
the cell wall, animal cells can be in any sort of shape or size as they are instead
surrounded by a plasma membrane. In this experiment, we were trying to observe
blood sample through a microscope. Microscope is an instrument that is used to see
objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. We also make slide
preparations using blood sample. The hypothesis for this experiment is blood
consists of red blood cell, white blood cell and platelets. Red blood cells make up
around 99.9% of all blood cells and are responsible for delivering oxygen from the
lungs to the rest of the body as it contains haemoglobin. Red blood cells are the only
animal cells that do not have a nucleus. White blood cells are a vital part of an
animal’s immune system and help to battle infections by killing off damaging bacteria
and other compounds. While, platelets function is to stop bleeding by clumping and
clotting blood vessel injuries (along with the coagulation factors).
Mitosis is a process of cell duplication, which one cell gives rise to two genetically
identical daughter cells. A cell duplicates itself so that each daughter call receives an
identical copy of its genetic material. At the end of mitosis, there will be two cells
instead of one. The events that occur differ in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Strictly
applied, the term mitosis is used to describe the duplication and distribution of
chromosomes, the structures that carry the genetic information. The act of cell
division is normally a single process, but it can be broken down into number of
“phases”. There are five stages or phases occur during process of mitosis which are
interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase and telophase. Mitosis is important in
order to replace dead cells, increases number of cells in living organisms thus
allowing growth and development in multicellular organism and allows damaged cells
to be repaired, replaced or even regenerated. In this experiment, a prepared slide
was observed through microscope to understand the stages of mitosis. The
hypothesis for this experiment is all somatic cells undergoes mitosis to produce two
identical daughter cells.

Meiosis is a process where a single cell divides twice to produce four cells
containing half the original amount of genetic information. These cells are our sex
cells – sperm in males, eggs in females. In animals, meiosis occurs in reproductive
organs, testes(male) and ovaries(female) while in plants, meiosis occurs in the
anthers and ovaries of flowers. In meiosis, there are meiosis I and meiosis II. In
meiosis I, there are four phases occur which are prophase I, metaphase I, anaphase
I and telophase I. While in meiosis II, four phases also occur which consists of
prophase II, metaphase II, anaphase II and telophase II. Meiosis is important in
providing for genetic variation. In species that reproduce sexually, meiosis ensures
that diploid number of chromosomes is maintained from one generation to the next.
In this experiment, a prepared slide was observed through microscope to understand
the stages of meiosis. The hypothesis for this experiment is all cells in the
reproductive organs undergo meiosis to produce four daughter cells that are non-
identical.