An Essay on the Differences between Prokaryote & Eukaryote cells.

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An Essay on the Differences between

 Prokaryote & Eukaryote cells

All cellular organism fall into two natural groups, known as prokaryotes and eukaryotes. These two groups are fundamentally different. The terms prokaryote and eukaryote refer to the differences in the location of the DNA. In prokaryotes the DNA is not enclosed by nuclear membranes and lies free in the cytoplasm. The cells therefore lack true nuclei . The cells of eukaryotes, however, do contain true nuclei.

Eukaryotes arose around 1.2 thousand million years ago, and they evolved from prokaryotes which began around 3.5 thousand million years ago.

Although the location of the DNA in the cells is the major difference between the cell types, there are many more differences, which are explored below.

The sizes of the cells are vastly different, in prokaryotes the average diameter of the cell is 0.5-10μm. However, eukaryote cells are much larger in comparison, they are typically 1000-10000 times the volume of prokaryote cells, and their common diameter is 10-100μm.

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Prokaryotes mainly arise in unicellular forms and examples of organisms that are prokaryotic is bacteria. Eukaryotes on the other hand arise in multicellular form and examples of eukaryotic celled organisms are fungi, plants, animals and the exception which are protoctist as many of them are unicellular.

As mentioned above the DNA lies free in the cytoplasm of prokaryotes, and lies linear and in a nucleus in eukaryotes. However, in prokaryotes the DNA is ‘naked’ and therefore is not associated with proteins or RNA to form chromosomes. While in eukaryotes the DNA is not naked and is associated with ...

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