In this video, we're going to talk about yet another digestive organelle of the endomembrane system, and that is the central vacuole. Now the central vacuole is a large membrane-enclosed vesicle found inside of plant cells. Central vacuoles are not found in animal cells; they're really only found in plant cells. Central vacuoles actually have a lot of different types of functions, but those functions include degrading and recycling molecules.

So, they're part of the digestive organelles for that reason. Other functions of the central vacuole include filling up with water to exert what's known as turgor pressure against the cell membrane. Let's take a look at our image down below to get a better understanding here of this central vacuole. Over here on the left-hand side, notice that we're showing you our representation of a plant cell, and recall central vacuoles are really only found in plant cells, not in animal cells. And so, you can see the central vacuole is this blue structure that we see right here.

Okay? And we have it labeled as the central vacuole. Over here on the right-hand side, we're showing you some other representations of plants and plant cells. Notice in this image over here, water is actually leaving the cell, with the arrows going in a direction where the water is leaving the cell.

Notice that the plant cell's plasma membrane, which is right here, is not really exerting any pressure onto the cell wall, and the cell wall is the surrounding wall that you see right here. When water is leaving the cell, the plasma membrane does not exert pressure on the cell wall, and that means that there will be very low turgor pressure in this area. When a plant has low turgor pressure, it's not going to be in a healthy state, and that can cause a plant to wilt, like this wilted plant that we see here. Ultimately, this could lead to a cell dying.

Over here on the right-hand side, notice that we are showing you the arrows going into the cell, indicating that water is entering the cell and filling it up with water. One of the roles of the central vacuole is to fill up and store water. Notice that with all this water going into the plant cell, the cell's plasma membrane is expanded, which you can see being traced here in red. The plasma membrane is right up against the cell wall, and so the plasma membrane is exerting pressure on the cell wall, meaning that when water is entering the plant cell, there will be high turgor pressure. Turgor pressure can allow plants to be upright and maintain their normal healthy structure.

This here concludes our brief introduction to central vacuoles, and we'll be able to get some practice applying these concepts as we move forward throughout our course. I'll see you all in our next video.