• Question: What is the difference between normal cells and specialised cell and why?

    Asked by anon-193530 to Jamal, iainstaniland, Heidi, Emma, Carl on 14 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Emma Crawford

      Emma Crawford answered on 14 Nov 2018:

      Different parts of the body have very different functions, so it is important that the cells in these different parts have adapted in order to help the functioning to be more efficient.

      For example, red blood cells are shaped as a biconcave disc (indented on each side), which means that they are able to bend and squeeze through smaller vessels in the body. They also don’t have a nucleus, so they have more space for haemoglobin and therefore more space for oxygen, which attaches to the haemoglobin. Overall, this means that red blood cells are very well adapted to transporting oxygen to distant organs.

      Another example is ciliated cells. Cilliated cells have tiny ‘hairs’ along their surface, which are able to push mucous along. Ciliated cells line the lungs, which is why if you have a bad chest infection you are able to cough up phlegm, or mucous, which helps to get rid of bacteria.

    • Photo: Carl Heron

      Carl Heron answered on 14 Nov 2018:

      All cells carry out basic functions such as energy production etc. However, there are about 200 different kinds of specialized cells in the human body. A good example are

      • Nerve Cells: Also called Neurons, these cells are in the nervous system and function to process and transmit information. They are the core components of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves.They use chemical and electrical synapses to relay signals throughout the body.

      Essentially, specialised cells are different because they have different functions to normal cells…..it’s all about the DNA making proteins that do different things.

    • Photo: Heidi Gardner

      Heidi Gardner answered on 14 Nov 2018: last edited 14 Nov 2018 12:03 pm

      Good question! ‘Normal cells’ are pretty hard to define, but if you mean cells that haven’t specialised to be very good as one specific thing, then those are called undifferentiated stem cells. These are the very basic cells in biology that all other cells derive from, and lots of scientists are trying to use them to study the process of cell development (so why and how do specific cells end up being specialised in the way that they are?) and growth.
      Most cells in the body are specialised in some way:
      e.g. red blood cells have that weird disc shape and that helps them carry oxygen around the body.
      General_EduRes_Heart_RedBloodCells

      Nerve cells (called neurons) are long and thin with a sort of star shape at the end – the length means they can quickly transmit messages from one part of the body to another, and the star shaped bit at the ends means they can branch out and interact with lots of other cells.
      173_neurons
      173_neurons

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