Cells throughout the body exhibit a great degree of variation, both in morphology and function. However, many cellular structures are common to almost all cell types. Developing your ability to visually recognize specific cell structures in light and electron micrographs will help you not only in your quest to identify tissues and organs, but also to interpret their functions.

In this session, we will look at the plasma membrane, membranous organelles, cytoskeleton, and nucleus. Along with the nucleus we will consider cell division.

The learning objectives for this module are:

1. Describe the general structure and function of the cellular organelles and nucleus.
2. Interpret cell function based on structural features.
3. Identify cellular organelles and nuclei as they appear in H&E stained specimens and transmission electron micrographs.

We'll start with the plasma membrane.