ABSTRACT
Eukaryotes Eukaryotes include species as diverse as animals, plants, fungi and slime molds. In all eukaryotes the cell is surrounded by a plasma membrane, has a membrane-bound nucleus and contains a number of other distinct subcellular organelles (Figure 1). These organelles are membrane-bounded structures, each having a unique role and each containing a specific complement of proteins and other molecules. The key differences between eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells (Section A1) are listed in Table 1. Animal and plant cells have the same basic structure, although some organelles and structures are found in one and not the other (e.g. chloroplasts, vacuoles and cell wall in plant cells, lysosomes in animal cells).
