Animal Blood Cells Lab Report

Plant and animal cells have similarities, such as that they both have eukaryotic cells with a separately enclosed nucleus. However, there are also many differences between both plant and animal cells, specifically cell walls in plant cells which do not exist in animal cells. Before conducting an experiment, I hypothesized that both animal and plant cells would prefer isotonic solutions. To test my hypothesis, two experiments were conducted to examine the effect solutions with different solute concentrations had on water movement in animal blood cells and plant cells.

The animal blood cells were examined first. There were three sample tubes, labeled 1-3, set up with 0.1 ml of mammal blood. First, we only added 1.00 ml of Stock 300 mM NaCl to

Based on these observations, I concluded that animal cells prefer isotonic solutions because if they are placed in hypertonic solutions the water will transport out of the cell causing the cell to shrivel up. If animal blood cells they are placed in hypotonic solutions the water will transport in the cell which will cause the cell to swell up and burst, known as hemolysis. Alternatively, I concluded that plants cells prefer hypotonic solutions. This is because, unlike animal blood cells, plants have a large central vacuole that stores excess water for the plants until needed. Also, due to the rigid cell wall, water entering the plant cell is able to push the cytoplasm against the cell wall without causing the plant cell to burst. Instead, it provides turgor pressure from inside the cell that prevents the plant from wilting. If plant cells are places in isotonic solutions they begin to lose their shape and color. If they are placed in hypertonic solutions the cytoplasm shrinks within the cell, similar to that of the animal cell. However, the rigid cell wall remains intact, which is referred to as plasmolysis. With these observations and explanations in mind, I ultimately concluded that plant cells prefer solutions with low solute concentrations and high osmotic potential, hypotonic, while animal cells prefer solutions with identical solute concentrations and osmotic potentials,