Cell: The Smallest Unit of Life with Independent Existence
Life begins as a cellular unit. A cell is a fundamental unit of life since no living entity can exist without a cellular structure, and a cell is a unit of both structure and function.
Numerous unicellular organisms are present in the universe, where single cell is sufficient to perform the fundamental processes of life, for example, bacteria, Protista, protozoa, and yeast. A multicellular organism like a higher animal or plant has billions of cells. For example, an average man of 70 kg weight and 1.72 m height with a body area of 1.85 m2 has 37.2 trillion cells of about 200 types. Cells are clubbed to form tissues, tissues to organs, and organs to organ systems.Cells are also the functional units of life. As Francois Jacob quipped (1971), ‘the dream of every cell is to become two cells’ a new cell is formed by the division of an existing cell. A totipotent single cell has unique capability to develop into the whole organism.
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