Overview of cell biology and its importance
The main two categories of cells are prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Prokaryotic cells are what make up bacteria and archaea while eukaryotic cells make up organisms of the domain eukaryota. The inside of the prokaryotic cell houses it’s genetic material, DNA, in a region called the nucleoid region. There are also ribosomes within the central region of the bacteria. The next layer is the plasma membrane, a bi-lipid layer like you will see for eukaryotic cells. Unlike eukaryotic cells, prokaryotic cells will have a cell wall and a capsule surrounding the cell membrane. The eukaryotic cell is surrounded by a lipid membrane, and has membrane-bound organelles. The genetic material, DNA, is stored in the nucleus which is a membrane bound organelle. In research, many different types of cells are used. Bacterial cells are used in protein purification to grow a plasmid to express a protein of interest. You can read about this in our article protein expression and purification. Many types of Eukaryotic cells are used to do in vivo studies. Depending on your research interests, you might use muscle cells, or skin cells, or cancer cells.