Why is the cell the foundation of all living beings?

If we start by assuming and declaring that the cell is the fundamental unit of all living matter, it is why we accept that the cell is the engine of all living existence, both animal and vegetable. The cell is so important to understand how living organisms work, which is also part of assuming that the cell is a "basic autonomous in the organization of living beings," and that is not only the cell is essential to understand the way in which all animal and plant species are structured and organized, but part of their functioning depends on the cell.

In the development of this article I will describe the importance of knowing the cell, its types, form and structure, since the cell, being present in the diversity of living beings, has a diversity in its form, structure and functionality. However, despite not being able to speak of a type cell, there are many fundamental characteristics common to all of them.

When we try to describe the cell, without a doubt it is convenient to refer to its morphology, always taking into account that the cells of various living organisms have a wide diversity, so their morphology is variable. For example, we must also evaluate their physical condition when they are under living conditions in a liquid medium, the cells when they live in a liquid medium are isolated therefore take a rounded shape. If the cells are grouped and subjected to various pressures, they adopt a polyhedral shape.

The cell dimensions vary considerably, within its small size, from 0.001 mm of bacteria, subcellular forms of organization, to 500 mm of some fibrous cells, the average size being 0.1 to 0.2 mm; in the various natural groups, the cells usually have specific and characteristic sizes, for example amphibian cells are larger than those of the other groups of vertebrates. Regarding its number, it is not usually constant in individuals and is directly related to the size of each one.

On the basis of all this morphological configuration of the cell, the subject that has to be fundamental objective in the study of cell shape is to be able to focus all our attention on the "cellular configuration", based on its basic structure, the Cell has a nucleus accompanied by a nucleolus and a cytoplasm limited by a membrane, also, as we will see later, there are other cellular elements, especially in the cytoplasm.

To give a small example of what the morphology of a plant and animal cell is like, I will show below a scheme of how the shape of the two types of cells is distributed:

Image source Author: MesserWoland and Szczepan1990. License: GNU Free Documentation

In the previous image we can see the structure of an animal cell, whose parts are named below:

1. Nucleolo
2. Nucleus
3. Ribosome
4. Vesicle
5. Rough endoplasmic reticulum
6. Golgi apparatus (or "Golgi body")
7. Cytoskeleton
8. Smooth endoplasmic reticulum
9. Mitochondria
10. Vacuola
11. Citosol
12. Lisosoma
13. Centipede

Image source Author: LadyofHats. License: public domain

There are notable differences in the structure and functioning of the two types of cells, but in order not to extend this publication so much, my objective was not so much to describe each of the components that make up the structure of both the animal and the plant cells, since in any text of biology anyone can draw their own conclusions even in the differences of form between the plant and animal cell, my intention is mostly to analyze and interpret the movements that the cell makes in living beings to carry out the processes of metabolism. Another point with great inference without a doubt is the role that the cell occupies for the way in which organisms feed on different types of food.

Movement is a property that characterizes all cells, although it is more or less accentuated according to the type, its level of differentiation and the functional period of the cell. And it is that when the texts of biology tell us that the cell is the fundamental unit of living beings do not say it in vain, since the cell is the source of life of every living organism, the movement of the cell is indispensable to reach all chemical processes of energy transformation, ie all living beings need food to survive, this food is once processed by the cell, its kinetic state metabolizes these foods to transform it into essential energy for many living beings.

Generally, the movement represents the result of a series of metabolic processes, through which the chemical energy provides by the coenzyme adenosintrifosfórico acid (better known as ATP) to be transformed into mechanical energy. Since the size of the cell is microscopic, the movements that it performs are very difficult to observe, some movements are invisible, while others can be seen with the microscope.

Image source Public domain

Image description: Space model filled with adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a major intermediate coenzyme in energy metabolism, also known as the "currency of energy exchange".

This race that gives the cell to transform, to degrade, in short we could say by metabolizing different processes in our organism, makes the study of the cell have to respect certain fundamental principles such as those of thermodynamics, however there are many considerations to be made as the cell moves to metabolize certain nutrients, according to the second law of thermodynamics in any closed system the amount of entropy will be greater and greater, however we see how some living beings contradict this law, since life alone It is possible because all living organisms are open systems that exchange matter and energy with their surroundings, so we can say that living beings are not in equilibrium but are systems of dissipation that maintain their state of complexity because they cause increases greater in the entropy of its surroundings. In simpler and more thermodynamic terms, the metabolism maintains order by creating a disorder.

In this search to move, the cell uses different processes to keep its laboratory active, and in this way synthesize anything so that we live organisms have that life so appreciated. Below I show an image where you can see how the dynamism of the cell transforms carbohydrates into glucose, this glucose so necessary for energy and that humans use as much needed fuel in our most common activities.

Image source Author: Wikimuzg. License: GNU Free Documentation

1. For science is very important to study the different functions and facets that meet the cells in that life cycle that we have all living beings on the planet, and even more so taking into account that the human being and all living beings are in a constant evolution, where every time we change our eating habits, so we need to know what cellular behavior occurs in different living beings as we move in the evolutionary process.

2. In the industrialization and processing of food, the cell study plays a leading role, I as a future food engineer I am aware that a proper conservation of food, both animal and vegetable origin is essential for processing them, so that knowing the cellular behavior of different plant and animal elements will facilitate the processing and industrialization of said foods.

3. Philosophy and science for each subject that they try to address concerning the origin of life, surely they will have a section devoted to cell study, since if the cell is the anatomical and functional unit of all living beings, surely the origin of life is closely linked to the cells of the first unicellular microorganisms existing on the planet in its origins.

4. Certainly, the cellular study along with other theories will have a considerable future future, due to the demand of changes in genetic material to reach the maximum productivity in agricultural and livestock sectors, also in the cure to many current diseases, that in future times it will be cured if the cellular behavior to many diseases of man is thoroughly studied.

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• Da Silva J.J.R.F. and Williams R.J.P., The Biological Chemistry of the Elements: The Inorganic Chemistry of Life, Clarendon Press, 1991.