# Inside a Human Cell

A sliced\-open human cell showing how its membrane, nucleus, ribosomes, Golgi, mitochondria and lysosomes work together\. Tap each part to see what it does\.

By PETE\!

Topic: Human Body & Medicine

[Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/s3TQk0aOq5zU)

## Transcript

### 1. Inside a Human Cell

This is one of your cells, sliced open like a fruit\. A typical human cell is about 30 micrometres across, far too small to see without a microscope\. Tap any part to name it, or drag empty space to turn the cell\.

Real cells are almost colourless\. The colours here are labels, as in textbook drawings\.

### 2. The plasma membrane

A thin, oily skin wraps the whole cell\. It is a double layer of fat molecules that keeps the inside in and decides what may cross\. Inside it, the jelly\-like cytoplasm is packed with working parts\.

### 3. The nucleus

The largest part is the nucleus, the cell's control centre\. It holds your DNA, the instructions for building and running the cell\. Its double envelope is dotted with pores that let messages out, and the dark nucleolus inside starts building ribosomes\.

### 4. Ribosomes and the ER

Ribosomes are tiny machines that read those messages and build proteins\. Many sit on the rough endoplasmic reticulum, folded sheets that join the nuclear envelope\. The smooth ER, a network of tubes without ribosomes, makes fats\.

### 5. The Golgi apparatus

New proteins travel in small bubbles called vesicles to the Golgi, a stack of flat sacs\. It finishes, sorts and labels them, then ships them out\. Press Ship a protein to follow one package from the ER to the membrane\.

### 6. Mitochondria

Mitochondria are the cell's power stations\. They use oxygen to turn food into ATP, the energy every other part runs on\. Their inner membrane folds into shelves called cristae, giving more room for the work\.

Mitochondria even carry a little DNA of their own\.

### 7. Lysosomes

Lysosomes are small bags of digestive enzymes\. They break down worn\-out parts and things the cell has swallowed, so their building blocks can be used again\.

### 8. The cytoskeleton

A scaffold of protein filaments gives the cell its shape\. Microtubules spread out from the centrosome beside the nucleus, and act as tracks that carry vesicles to where they are needed\.

### 9. All working together

Every part depends on the others: instructions from the nucleus, proteins from ribosomes, energy from mitochondria and recycling by lysosomes\. Your body has about 30 trillion cells, and many of them follow this same basic plan\.

Cells differ: most of those 30 trillion are red blood cells, which even give up their nucleus\.