Talk:Vacuole

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 11 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cmbio401. Peer reviewers: Imahoney26, Cestfini001.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Please help merging/copyediting central vacuole section
This article needs major resturcturing. Instead of broad topics like Plant/Animal/Protista it should be split up by type of vacuole, not where the type is present. I would do this myself, but I do't know much about the subject and feel it should be left for someone with more information on the topic I merged material from central vacuole which now REDIRECTs here, but it still needs more merging, I suspect that there is some redundant content, somebody who knows vacuoles better than me should do this. --Lexor|Talk 11:11, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * Why was this information merged? A cental vacuole is a discrete organelle with specific metabolic functions entirely seperate from the general functions of organelles. In my opinion, a complete merge in this case was probably ill-advised - a join clean-up would have been preferable. ClockworkSoul 16:15, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I think they should stay merged until someone comes up with a more comprehensive article about plant's central vacuole. Tycho 17:42, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with leaving them merged for now - after all, it's already done. At some point we may want to seperate them again, though. ClockworkSoul 03:50, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Did a partial merge of the vacuole functions and marked page for further cleanup by some brave soul, perhaps one that knows the subject better Kendrick7 09:57, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I would like to restructure this page to have the following outline Title: Vacuole * Central Vacuole * Contractile Vacuole * Air (Gas) Vacuole * Food Vacuole
 * 1) Discovery
 * 2) Function
 * 3) Vacuole Types
 * 1) Histopathology
 * 2) References

So essentially, the discovery section would get pushed up, the overview would be renamed to function and then there would be the types of vacuoles instead of basing it by where it's found. Someone that knows more information can add to the Histopathology section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmbio401 (talk • contribs) 04:24, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Tonoplast
The tonoplast regulates the flow of material between the vacuole and cytosol of the plant cell. I think it should have its own article, especially since symplast and apoplast have their own. --Brazucs 09:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Hope u lerned alot! by Danielle l.

ok — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.247.225 (talk) 15:49, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Animals cells do not contain vacuoles
In animal cells, the organelles equivalent to vacuoles are the lysosomes. See e.g. Alberts et a. 2002, cited under "References" in the article: At least, the terms "vesicles", "endosomes" and "lysosomes" should be mentioned in the section dealing with animal cells.--Biologos 13:39, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Animal cells can sometimes contain vacuoles... It's just not as prominant as in other kingdoms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.237.208.218 (talk) 23:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree - I've never heard of animal vacuoles before. I therefore replaced the animal cell diagram with one of a plant cell - it seems more sensible. Smartse (talk) 23:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * While this may indeed be technically correct in regards to what precisely a 'vacuole' is, the reality of scientific nomenclature and literature makes it difficult to distinguish. This especially becomes the case when considering autophagy and certain aspects of immunology where most journal articles will use the word "vacuole" in reference to "autophagic vacuoles" or when discussing the lipid transport chain and "storage vacuoles". Due to this it would seem better to be inclusive since readers would likely encounter these many uses of "vacuole" when dealing with scientific literature. It would also be quite difficult to decide that one usage or the other is wrong when there isn't really a conclusive baseline. As such, while perhaps both images should then be placed on the page, I don't see how it is beneficial to replace one with another, especially as there is an entire section in the article referring to animal 'vacuoles'. Aenioc (talk) 02:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Does anyone think that it would be better if a seperate page was created for "plant vacuole"? The plant vacuole is an extremely important organelle in plants and is distinctive. In contrast animal vacuoles seem to be small non-distinct vesicles. Plant and animal vacuoles are very different an I feel that this should be recognised through having two distinct articles and perhaps keeping the vacuole page as a simple explanation. Smartse (talk) 15:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Animal cells categorically do contain vacuoles, though they may be absent in certain cell types. I don't think muscle cells have them, for example. An example of vacuoles in animal cells is in white blood cells, e.g. macrophages which engulf disease-causing organisms such as bacteria into a vacuole known as a phagosome. Many other cells types in animals have vacuoles too, but they are usually referred to as vesicles in medicine and animal biology, or given other more function-specific names such as phagosome (see above) or lysosomes.  I don't think the section on plant vacuoles should be separated - at the moment the article is developing into a nice comparison of the different, but sometimes overlapping roles of these structures in plants and animals, although there is much work to be done yet. For example, don't forget the contractile vacuole, which vacuole does not yet link to. This article needs and deserves the attention of an expert in cell biology, since vacuoles are structures of major importance in both plants and animals. Plantsurfer (talk) 17:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It is best to keep both within the same article, especially since in this case any potential dispute would simply be along the lines of semantics, and what precisely one might decide to call a vacuole, lysosome or vesicle rather than on established biological rules of classification. Scientific literature addresses the organelle with a variety of titles, but the base structure, composition and functions are shared, so for our purposes we should follow this convention- or lack thereof. Some published books and articles might exclusively call an organelle a vacuole while others refer to them only as vesicles (an example of which is referenced in the article). Its best then to simply take a generalist approach and approach the structure as a vacuole, despite the conception that the animal "vacuole" may not seem so prominent or clear cut in its terminology when compared to its plant counterpart. Aenioc (talk) 03:27, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes; animal cells do not contain central vacuoles. That is a false diagram. Armynavy123 (talk) 14:38, 1 May 2010 (UTC)armynavy123


 * Ok, looks like the consensus is to keep it as it is. I've added back the animal cell diagram I thought for simplicity it was best with only the vacuole label but the others are here if anyone thinks differently:

(1) Nucleolus (2) Nucleus (3) Ribosomes (4) Vesicle (5) rough Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) (6) Golgi apparatus (7) Cytoskeleton (8) smooth ER (9) Mitochondria (11) Cytoplasm (12) Lysosome (13) Centrioles within Centrosome

Smartse (talk) 16:01, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

How do vacuoles both store nutrition and also help destroy invading bacteria?
please explain how both functions are being carried out by the same subsystem, thanks.

vacuoles
Who discoverd vacuoles?when? How did vacuoles get their name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.231.113.150 (talk) 04:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC) ... please make it easier to understand!!!79.74.16.153 (talk) 11:07, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Needs introduction
This article desperately needs an introduction. What is a vacuole? Where does it appear in nature? What functions does it perform (not in list form)? I'd fix it myself but I simply don't have the depth of knowledge for that task. --Makaristos (talk) 04:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

More changes
I've added sections for fungi and bacteria - it seems from my research as though vacuoles are found in all the kingdoms. I'll add a section on protists too at some point. I'm not sure of the best order to have list the animals, bacteria and protists in - IMO plants and fungi should be first as all cells contain them but I don't know about the others. I've changed the plant cell diagram - I think it is clearer like this and will do the same to the animal cell.

Also at present the animal section basically just tells us about exocytosis and endocytosis but not much else. There might also be some confusion between vacuole and vesicle. Can anyone shed any light on this? Smartse (talk) 17:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I added a bit to the bacteria section, mentioning gas vacuoles which are a common strategy for cyanobacteria. I think you're forgetting the domain Archaea, but I honestly don't know if any Archaeans have been discovered that contain vacuoles. That domain of life is often overlooked and unappreciated. Wingman13 (talk) 11:16, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Central Vacuole
This article needs to have a section about the central vacuole so my fellow classmates and I will not fail our biology quiz. Guess the rumors are right, Google is way better than this...

Question
Please see here.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 02:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Cell sap?
One of my biology textbooks (I am a student) state that cell sap is present only in the vacuole of a plant cell.However,another textbook states that cell sap is present in both kinds of vacuoles,plant and animal.I am in the middle of school break so I don't have a teacher to verify with.Please help me decide on this dilemma--Rabidolphinz 12:50, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Delete footnote 14
Please remove footnote 14, it links to spam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.193.8 (talk) 02:20, 11 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Done, thanks for pointing it out. Aenioc (talk) 01:05, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 June 2016
Your first list has bad grammar, having no comer before the and on a 3 word list.

Spider Crewian (talk) 02:27, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * ❌ that is a matter of style, not grammar - please see Serial comma (not comer) - Arjayay (talk) 07:49, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

For my class, I am required to evaluate and critique an article about organelles.

I chose to check the citation links to see if they worked and if there was any plagiarism. I also looked for information that could be added or taken out.

Links Link #4 works, but the source is not actually cited, just the link is provided. The link in #6 does not work. #8 on the list, the titled portion, takes you to a German (or other foreign) university website in which it is not in English and I cannot find any information. There also is no document that comes up. The paraphrasing for the link for #15 is borderline plagiarism after checking the link to the source.

Add or take out If there are any more recent discoveries about vacuoles, I think that should be added to the “Discovery” section. The last date mentioned under “Discovery” was 1885. I would find it hard to believe that there were no more significant discoveries that could be added to this list within the past 131 years.

Under the “Animals” section, there is a part that explains what exocytosis is. I think this could be omitted because if you click the link in the first paragraph under the “Animals” section, it explains to you what exocytosis is. It then goes on to talk about the Golgi apparatus, which is a little off topic. This section then further discusses endocytosis, phagocytosis, and invagination, which distracts from the vacuole organelle and does not relate back to the vacuole very well. These processes can be read about if you click on their link in the paragraph to take you to their relative Wikipedia sites.

Hollyfarkosh (talk) 15:44, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 January 2017
please change animal cell to plant cell because vacuoles are only in plant cells 80.6.58.75 (talk) 14:17, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Sir Joseph (talk) 14:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Vacuole
Is Vacuole an organelle? Abdullah Mudathir (talk) 15:56, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

The first source can not be verified.
https://books.google.com.hk/books?id=OA37DQAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Taber's%20Cyclopedic%20Medical%20Dictionary%20(Twentieth%20Edition)%2C%20(F.A.%20Davis%20Company%2C%20Philadelphia)%2C&hl=zh-CN&pg=PA2287#v=onepage&q&f=false Please check the first reference. I can not find any related info on this book. Xiaobao (talk) 10:33, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Some resources are no longer available
Citation no.9 (http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/botanik/bot1/AGBecker/Publikationen/pdfs/IRC2007.pdf) is no longer available (Error 404, not found).

Togira Ikonoka 123 (talk) 10:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks Togira Ikonoka 123. I've updated it with an archived version https://web.archive.org/web/20141006084817/http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/botanik/bot1/AGBecker/Publikationen/pdfs/IRC2007.pdf - you can search for yourself at https://web.archive.org SmartSE (talk) 11:04, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Are the tonoplast and the cell membrane structurally the same?
I can't find any information or reference to say that they are the same or different. I think it would be useful addition to the article. Strayan (talk) 03:40, 28 April 2020 (UTC)