If you travel across the US you will notice near many cities a water tower. These are structures that store water for the people in the city. The water is essential for life and needs to be stored for later use. In a similar fashion, plant and animal cells have storage structures called vacuoles.
Let’s take a look at the vacuoles found in plant and animal cells..
Although both plants and animal cells have vacuoles they vary greatly in their shape.
On the left you'll notice that the vacuole for the plant cell is very large, and there's one central vacuole. In fact the central vacuole may take up between 30 to 70 percent of the plant cells volume.
In animal cells the vacuoles are smaller but you have more than one. The number of vacuoles depends on the type of animal cell.
In general, the functions of the vacuole include:
Isolating materials that might be harmful or a threat to the cell
Containing and storing waste products
Store water
Maintaining internal turgor pressure within plant cells The turgor pressure is the force that pushes the cell membrane against the cell wall. If you have seen a plant wilt, the turgor pressure is low.
The central vacuole in plant cells Allows plants to support structures such as leaves and flowers due to the turgor pressure of the central vacuole.
Vacuoles are also found in fungal cells, protists, and some bacteria have vacuoles.
