Features of Plant and Animal Cell

However plant and animal cells also differ. One of the most prominent features of the plant cell is its huge vacuoles filled with cell sap. Vacuoles occur less frequently in animal cells and are usually smaller. Plant cells are encased in a thick, semi rigid cell wall. The animal cell shape is more variable due to a shifting, dynamic fibrous cytoskeleton of microfilaments and microtubules. (Plant cells may have microfilaments and microtubles at some stage of growth).

Centrioles are typically seen in animal cells while plant cells often contain plastids, including the photosynthesizing chloroplasts and the leucoplasts, in which starch gains are stored, and peroxisomes, which neutralize hydrogen peroxide. The cell surface of the animal cell may be thrown up into absorbing microvilli or grasping pseudopods; some animal cells have motile, complex flagella or cilia with their associated basal bodies. Higher plants lack cilia or flagella, although ferns and lower plants have motile sperm cells with flagella. Organelle lysosomes are found exclusively in animal cells.