Question
Question: How many vacuoles are in a plant cell?...
How many vacuoles are in a plant cell?
Solution
A vacuole is a membrane-enclosed fluid filled sac present in the cells of plants and fungi. Vacuoles can be large organelles occupying between 30 percent and 90 percent of a cell by volume.
Complete answer:
Plant cell vacuoles are multifunctional organelles which are essential to plant growth cellular strategies. They share with the vacuoles of algae and yeast and the lysosomes of animal cells some of their essential properties. They are lytic compartments that act as ion and metabolite reservoirs, including pigments, and are essential for detoxification processes and homeostasis of general cells.
They are engaged in cellular responses to stress-provoking environmental and biotic factors. They work in combination with the cell wall in the plant's vegetative organs to produce turgor, the driving force for hydraulic stiffness and growth. They function as sites for storing reserve proteins and soluble carbohydrates in seeds and specialised storage tissues. Vacuoles thus perform physical and metabolic roles that are important to the life of plants.
In general, plant cells have one larger central vacuole.
Plant cells have a large vacuole near their chloroplasts, and this organelle includes cell sap and helps preserve the upright structure of the plant. The vacuole includes nutrients that are organic and inorganic that are also beneficial to the plant and contained in the cell sap.
Vacuoles seem to have three primary functions, which are:
1)Contribute to the rigidity of the plant to establish hydrostatic pressure using water
2)Storage of chemicals for nutrients and non-nutrients
3)Break the complex molecules down.
Note: Each vacuole is limited by a membrane barrier called a tonoplast. This membrane is unique in that it can surround a small amount of fluid and then expand to become an organelle occupying as much as 95 percent of the cell by volume after a brief amount of time during which water is taken in. And all of this occurs without sacrificing the tonoplast's dignity as an active membrane. All the other organelles in the cell are pressed, without injury, against the firm cellulose cell wall in this process.