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Cell Structure
Prokaryotic Cells
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Concept Version 9
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Characteristics of Prokaryotic Cells

Cell Surface Size

Cell Surface Size

Notice that as a cell increases in size, its surface area-to-volume ratio decreases.When there is insufficient surface area to support a cell's increasing volume, a cell will either divide or die.The cell on the left has a volume of 1 mm3 and a surface area of 6 mm2, with a surface area-to-volume ratio of 6 to 1, whereas the cell on the right has a volume of 8 mm3 and a surface area of 24 mm2, with a surface area-to-volume ratio of 3 to 1.

Source

    Boundless vets and curates high-quality, openly licensed content from around the Internet. This particular resource used the following sources:

    "OpenStax College, Prokaryotic Cells. October 16, 2013."
    http://cnx.org/content/m44406/latest/Figure_04_02_03.png OpenStax CNX CC BY 3.0.

Related Terms

  • nucleoid
  • prokaryotic
  • eukaryotic
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