An interactive cell model you can turn in your hands. Pull it apart and every organelle floats out with its name, open a window through the membrane to look inside, and tap any part to learn what it does. Switch to the plant cell to watch the wall, the central vacuole, and the chloroplasts appear.
◉Animal cell3D
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Building the cell…
This browser can’t draw 3D graphics right now (WebGL is turned off or not supported), so here is the labeled diagram instead. Tap any numbered organelle to open its page, or pick one from the list to read about it.
Nucleus
Organelle · double membrane
The nucleus stores the cell’s DNA and decides which genes are read at any moment. Its double membrane, the nuclear envelope, is pierced by pores that let RNA and proteins pass between nucleus and cytoplasm.
Main job
Stores the DNA and controls which genes are expressed
Typical size
About 5–10 µm across, usually the largest organelle in an animal cell
Number per cell
One in most cells; skeletal muscle fibers carry hundreds, mature red blood cells have none
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a maze of membrane tubes and sacs continuous with the nuclear envelope. Rough ER, studded with ribosomes, folds and packages proteins; smooth ER makes lipids and detoxifies drugs.
Main job
Folds and modifies proteins made by its ribosomes
Structure
Rough ER: flattened cisternae dotted with ribosomes. Smooth ER: branching tubules without ribosomes
Typical size
Tubules about 30–100 nm wide; the network can account for more than half of all membrane in a cell
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a maze of membrane tubes and sacs continuous with the nuclear envelope. Rough ER, studded with ribosomes, folds and packages proteins; smooth ER makes lipids and detoxifies drugs.
Main job
Makes lipids, detoxifies drugs, stores calcium
Structure
Rough ER: flattened cisternae dotted with ribosomes. Smooth ER: branching tubules without ribosomes
Typical size
Tubules about 30–100 nm wide; the network can account for more than half of all membrane in a cell
Ribosomes read messenger RNA three bases at a time and link amino acids into proteins. They have no membrane and occur in every living cell, from bacteria to humans.
Main job
Translates mRNA into protein
Typical size
About 20–30 nm across, far too small to see with a light microscope
Number per cell
Roughly 20,000 in a growing E. coli cell; several million in a mammalian cell
The Golgi apparatus receives proteins and lipids from the ER, finishes them, and sorts them into vesicles for delivery. Cargo goes to the cell membrane, to lysosomes, or out of the cell: think of a mail room that modifies, labels, addresses, and ships.
Main job
Modifies, sorts, and packages proteins into vesicles
Typical size
Each cisterna is about 1 µm across; a stack is roughly 0.5–2 µm thick
Number per cell
One ribbon of linked stacks near the nucleus in animal cells; dozens to hundreds of separate stacks (dictyosomes) in plant cells
Mitochondria run aerobic respiration, converting the energy in glucose and fats into ATP the cell can spend. Their folded inner membrane and their own small genome are relics of free-living bacteria.
Main job
Aerobic respiration: makes most of the cell’s ATP
Typical size
About 0.5–1 µm wide and 1–10 µm long, roughly the size of a bacterium
Number per cell
From a handful to thousands; a liver cell holds about 1,000–2,000
Lysosomes are acidic sacs of enzymes that digest worn-out organelles, engulfed microbes, and large molecules. The pieces are recycled as building blocks, and a single membrane keeps roughly 50 kinds of hydrolase safely walled off from the cytosol.
Main job
Digests worn-out parts, food particles, and bacteria
Typical size
About 0.1–1.2 µm across, so it varies from a tiny vesicle to a mitochondrion-sized sac
Number per cell
Tens to a few hundred in a typical animal cell; far more in macrophages
The cytoplasm is the fluid that fills the cell around the organelles, where glycolysis and many other reactions happen. Glycolysis there yields just 2 ATP per glucose; the mitochondria make about 28 more.
The cell membrane, or plasma membrane, is a phospholipid bilayer about 7–8 nm thick that separates a cell from its surroundings. Embedded proteins let it choose what enters and leaves, receive signals, and hold on to neighbors.
Main job
Controls what enters and leaves the cell
Thickness
About 7–8 nm, invisible under a light microscope
Number per cell
One continuous sheet; a human red blood cell has about 140 µm² of it
A water-filled sac bounded by the tonoplast that can occupy 80–90% of the cell’s volume; it stores water, ions, and pigments and keeps the cell turgid.
Main job
Stores water, ions, and waste; keeps plant cells turgid
Chloroplasts capture light energy and use it to build sugar from carbon dioxide and water. Stacked membrane discs called thylakoids hold the chlorophyll; the fluid stroma around them runs the Calvin cycle.
Main job
Photosynthesis: builds sugar from CO₂ and water using light
Typical size
Lens-shaped, about 3–10 µm long and 1–3 µm thick
Number per cell
Around 30–100 in a leaf mesophyll cell; the alga Chlamydomonas has a single cup-shaped chloroplast
Pick one to highlight it in the model and read what it does.
How to use the 3D cell
Turn it. Drag the cell, or click it and use the arrow keys. Pinch or scroll to zoom once you have clicked the model; on a phone, swipe sideways to turn and up or down to keep scrolling the page.
Pull it apart. Slide Explode to the right. The membrane opens like a shell, each kind of organelle drifts out in its own direction, and a dashed line shows where it came from.
Look inside.Cutaway removes the slice of membrane (and cell wall) facing you and opens the nucleus, so you can see the nucleolus without pulling anything apart.
Learn a part. Tap an organelle, or pick it from the list beside the model, to light it up and read its job, its size, and how many a cell holds, with a link to its full page.
Share what you see.Copy share link saves the cell, the selected organelle, and the explode setting, so a link can open straight onto the chloroplast of a half-exploded plant cell.
Animal cell vs plant cell in 3D
A flexible, roughly rounded cell 10–30 µm across, bounded only by its membrane. It has a pair of centrioles near the nucleus and many lysosomes, but no wall, no chloroplasts, and no large central vacuole. A boxy cell 10–100 µm across held rigid by a cellulose wall outside the membrane. A large central vacuole fills most of the interior, chloroplasts line the cytoplasm, and there are no centrioles or true lysosomes. Here is what to look for when you switch between the two models.
Shape. The animal cell is a soft, slightly lumpy ball; the plant cell is a box with rounded corners, because its wall fixes its outline and lets it fit its neighbors like a brick.
Cell wall. The green outer box is the cellulose wall, typically 0.1–10 µm thick, outside the membrane. Explode the plant cell and the wall lifts away separately from the thin membrane inside it.
Central vacuole. The big glassy blue sac in the middle of the plant cell can fill 80–90% of its volume. Its pressure against the wall (turgor) is what holds a plant upright, and it pushes everything else into a thin layer of cytoplasm.
Chloroplasts. Green lens shapes line the plant cell’s cytoplasm. Each is cut open on one side to show what is inside: two envelope membranes plus a third internal system, the thylakoids, arranged in stacks called grana. A leaf cell has 30–100 of them.
Centrioles and lysosomes. Only the animal cell has the pair of centrioles at right angles beside the nucleus and the scattered coral-colored lysosomes. Plant cells divide without centrioles and digest mostly inside the vacuole.
What both share. A nucleus wrapped in rough ER, smooth ER tubules, mitochondria, ribosomes, and the Golgi apparatus. The plant cell shows two small Golgi stacks because plant cells have dozens to hundreds of separate stacks (dictyosomes) instead of one ribbon.
What the 3D model simplifies
A model has to bend the truth to fit on a screen. Knowing where it does is part of reading it well.
It is not to scale. A ribosome is about 20–30 nm across and the cell membrane only 7–8 nm thick, while an animal cell is 10–30 µm wide, roughly 300 to 1,500 times the width of a ribosome. Drawn to scale, the ribosomes would be invisible specks and the membrane a line far thinner than a hair on the screen.
The numbers are cut down. The model shows a handful of mitochondria and a few hundred ribosomes. A real liver cell holds about 1,000–2,000 mitochondria, a mammalian cell several million ribosomes, and a leaf cell 30–100 chloroplasts.
The colors are a code. Inside a living cell most organelles are close to colorless, which is why biologists stain them. The colors here match the site’s 2D diagram so you can move between the two. Chloroplasts are the honest exception: chlorophyll really is green.
The ER is one piece. Rough and smooth ER are drawn as separate parts so you can pull them apart, but in a cell they are regions of one continuous membrane, and the outer membrane of the nuclear envelope runs straight into the rough ER.
Nothing in a real cell sits still. Organelles are carried along the cytoskeleton, vesicles shuttle between the ER, Golgi, and membrane, and the lipids of the membrane drift so fast that one can travel the length of a bacterium in about a second.
Some parts are left out. The cytoskeleton, peroxisomes, and most transport vesicles are missing, and the cytoplasm is far more crowded than the open space in the model.
No one can open a cell like this. The cutaway and the explode slider are imaginary. Biologists see inside cells by cutting very thin slices and photographing them with an electron microscope, which is how the ER was first seen in 1945 and ribosomes in 1955.
Drag the cell to turn it (or click it and use the arrow keys), and pinch or scroll to zoom. Slide Explode to pull the organelles apart so each one floats out with its label, and switch on Cutaway to look through the membrane into the nucleus. Tap any organelle, or pick it from the list, to highlight it and read its job, its size, and how many a cell holds; Copy share link saves exactly what you are looking at.
What is the difference between an animal cell and a plant cell in 3D?
The plant cell is boxy because a rigid cellulose wall, typically 0.1–10 µm thick, surrounds its membrane. A central vacuole fills up to 80–90% of its volume and chloroplasts line the thin layer of cytoplasm left around it. The animal cell is rounded and flexible, bounded only by its membrane, with a pair of centrioles beside the nucleus and many lysosomes. Both have a nucleus, mitochondria, ribosomes, ER, and a Golgi apparatus.
No. A ribosome is about 20–30 nm across and an animal cell 10–30 µm, roughly 300 to 1,500 times wider, so true-to-scale ribosomes would be invisible specks. The model also shows a handful of mitochondria where a liver cell holds 1,000–2,000, and a few hundred ribosomes where a mammalian cell has several million. The colors are a code shared with the 2D diagram, not what a microscope shows.
Why does the 3D plant cell have no centrioles or lysosomes?
Flowering plants and conifers have no centrioles and build their spindle for cell division without them. True lysosomes are rare in plant cells because the acidic central vacuole holds hydrolytic enzymes and does the digesting instead. The 3D plant cell follows the same reference cell as the labeled diagram, which leaves both out.
It is built for them: the whole cell is drawn from simple shapes in your browser, with no download beyond the page and no account. It needs WebGL graphics; if your browser cannot use them, the page shows the labeled 2D diagram instead, and every organelle in it still opens its own page. On a phone, swipe sideways to turn the cell and up or down to scroll.
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