Question

How does the ability of a white blood cell to change its shape affect its function? How are the organelles of a single cell like organs of a multicellular organism?

Answer 1

Hint: Our cell is the basic structural and functional unit of life wherein each cell organelle has a specific function. There is a division of labour in the cell. There are even some of the cells in our body which have mobility i.e. they can move from one place to another through the body.

Complete answer:
This question can be divided into two parts-

Mobility of WBCs and their effect on its functionality-
The WBCs are involved in the defence system of the body which kills the disease-causing pathogens that intrudes the immune system. For killing the harmful pathogens, the white blood cells have to make way to the infected tissues by migrating through the blood vessels. WBCs have pseudopodia using which they move and engulf the disease-causing pathogens by phagocytosis. That is the reason white blood cells need mobility to reach the infection site or infectious tissues and eliminate the disease-causing microbes from the body. The WBCs kill the pathogen or disease-causing germs using phagocytosis. They engulf the pathogens by their pseudopodia by taking them up in a vesicle and killing them using various hydrolytic enzymes.

The resemblance of organelles with organs of a multicellular organism-
Just as the multicellular organism has specific organs to carry out their life processes; cells have organelles each organelle having their fixed function. This can be explained by some common examples-
-The nucleus of a cell can be compared to the brain of a multicellular organism.
-Just as the skin protects a multicellular organ cell membrane for a cell does the same function.
-The function of lungs(respiration) is taken up by mitochondria.
-The function of a skeleton is taken up by actin and other filaments, to be mentioned few.

Note: Every cell of the body has their specific function and they are mediated or carried out by cell organelles. Few cell organelles resemble the organs of the multicellular organism and carry every function efficiently. Some cells also have mobility for certain requirements of the cell.