∞ generated and posted on 2016.08.25 ∞

The liquid volume of a cell that is found immediately interior to the plasma membrane.

Cross the plasma membrane and everything you encounter is found within the cytoplasm. Note, however, that the volume of a cell, except for most prokaryotic cells, does not consist entirely of cytoplasm since various membrane-enclosed organelles exist, the interiors of which are not continuous with the cytoplasm. The cytoplasm of cells contains numerous additional components including enzymes, cytoskeleton components, ribosomes, numerous RNA types, etc.


Figure legend: That part of a cell that is contained by the plasma membrane and is external to the nucleus, if present. Cytoplasm is an aspect of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The actual, liquid, non-organelle portion of the cytoplasm is called cytosol.

Cytoplasm is an example of what can be described as protoplasm, another example being the nucleoplasm found within the nucleus, where protoplasm is the metabolically active portions of a cell; this contrasts, for example, with the central vacuole of plant cells which is substantially less metabolically active than protoplasm.