Infrastructure

Holding it all together

If a person gave you a giant plastic bag and 300 gallons of runny jello and told you make a structure that could hold a certain shape could you do it? Of course not! That would be impossible. The same is true in a living cell. If they were simply made up of cytoplasm and organelles inside a plasma membrane the cell would never be able to hold its shape. It is also important that there are places inside of the cell that can be used to attach things to.

These structures in a cell used for support are the cytoskeleton, centrioles, and cell walls.

Click on the pictures below to learn more about each of these structures.