What are the cellular structures that can be seen with submicroscopic and optical microscopes respectively?
Microstructure refers to the structure that can be observed under an optical microscope.
For cells: the cell wall, nucleus, endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, chloroplasts, Golgi apparatus, etc. can be directly observed under an optical microscope and are microscopic structures;
Note that only the shape of the organelles can be seen, and the detailed internal structure cannot be seen. For example, chloroplasts can only be seen as green oval particles, and the grana inside are submicroscopic structures.
Submicroscopic structures refer to structures that can be observed under an electron microscope.
For cells: cell membranes, ribosomes, various membrane structures, and the detailed internal structures of various organelles are submicroscopic structures.
Therefore, chromosomes can be seen with high-power microscopes (which are optical microscopes and microscopic structures).
Chromatin cannot be seen, it must be seen under an electron microscope.
The chromatin is highly spiraled into chromosomes, which can be observed under a high-power microscope after being stained with basic dyes.
What is seen under an electron microscope is the submicroscopic structure, while what is seen under an optical microscope is the microstructure. The magnification of an electron microscope is much greater than that of an optical microscope. An optical microscope can only see the basic structure of a cell (cell wall, cell membrane, cytoplasm, and nucleus). ), a very small number of organelles (chloroplasts, stained mitochondria), stained chromosomes, etc., and electron microscopy can observe almost any structure within the cell.
The difference between an optical microscope and an electron microscope is that an optical microscope can only see certain cell structures, such as cell walls, chloroplasts, stained chromosomes, mitochondria, nuclei, etc., while an electron microscope can see the internal structure of organelles and relatively complex structures such as ribosomes. small organelles. In short, light microscopes can see the microstructure of cells, and electron microscopes can see submicroscopic structures.
