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Protoplast
Cell stripped of cell-wall / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For mythological progenitors of humanity, see Protoplast (religion).
Protoplast (from Ancient Greek πρωτόπλαστος (prōtóplastos) 'first-formed'), is a biological term coined by Hanstein in 1880 to refer to the entire cell, excluding the cell wall.[1][2] Protoplasts can be generated by stripping the cell wall from plant,[3] bacterial,[4][5] or fungal cells[5][6] by mechanical, chemical or enzymatic means.
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Protoplasts differ from spheroplasts in that their cell wall has been completely removed.[4][5] Spheroplasts retain part of their cell wall.[7] In the case of Gram-negative bacterial spheroplasts, for example, the peptidoglycan component of the cell wall has been removed but the outer membrane component has not.[4][5]