Teoría celular

• Cell theory


  Theory that all living things are made up of cells
• Cell theory proposed by Matthias Schleiden, Theodor Schwann and Rudolph Virchow

  1838-1859
• Cell theory discarded the Aristotelian conception that life could arise by spontaneous generation from inert or non-living matter
• Organisms as different as animals, plants and bacteria are made up of equivalent basic units - cells
• Unicellular eukaryotic organisms and cells of complex animal tissues have a surrounding membrane, cytosol, nucleus and organelles
• Cell theory took place thanks to previous knowledge, observations and contributions from different authors
• Microscope


  • Invention in mid-17th century enabled first microscopic observations of cells
• Hooke coined the term "cell" to describe the cells he observed in cork
• Leeuwenhoek observed living cells and single-celled organisms
• Other early contributors


  • Marcello Malpighi
  • Nehemiah Grew
• Malpighi and Grew identified cell structure but referred to them as "cells", "pores" or "sacles"
• Lazzaro Spallanzani's experiments refuted spontaneous generation theories
• Louis Pasteur definitively proved spontaneous generation had no place in science
• Postulates of the cell theory

  • Plants and animals are composed of cells
  • Cells arise from other cells, not spontaneous generation
  • Modern cells originated from ancestral cells
• Main authors of the cell theory

  • Matthias Schleiden
  • Theodor Schwann
  • Rudolph Virchow
• Hooke observed "cells" in cork, suggesting living tissues were made up of the same "pores" or "cells"
• Leeuwenhoek was the first to evidence living cells and discover single-celled organisms
• Schleiden formulated the cell theory based on observations in plant tissues
• Schwann described nucleated cells in various animal tissues
• Brown recognized the nucleus as an essential part of living cells
• Virchow ruled out spontaneous generation, stating that every cell comes from a pre-existing cell
• Pasteur definitively disproved spontaneous generation through his experiments