In this video, we're going to introduce yet another digestive organelle of the endomembrane system and that is the central vacuole. And so the central vacuole is really just a large membrane-enclosed vesicle in plant cells. And so the central vacuole is not going to be found in animal cells. Again, the central vacuole is a feature found in plant cells. Now the central vacuole can actually have several diverse functions. However, some of those functions include degrading and recycling molecules which is why the central vacuole can be considered a digestive organelle. Now, other functions of the central vacuole include filling up with water in order to exert what's known as turgor pressure against the cell membrane. And so, if we take a look at our image down below, we can get a better understanding of this central vacuole.

And so notice on the left-hand side over here we're showing you our representation of a plant cell, and we know that plant cells have a cell wall and they also have several organelles which are going to include a central vacuole. Now notice over here we're showing you a plant, whose cell wall is right here around the perimeter, but notice that this plant cell membrane is not right up against the cell wall. And so in this scenario right here what's happening is water is going to be leaving the plant cell, and so you could draw an arrow coming out of this plant cell and say that water or H₂O, would be leaving this plant cell. And so when water leaves the plant, the plant is going to somewhat become dehydrated and the plasma membrane is going to shrivel up and so the plasma membrane will not be exerting pressure on the cell wall. And so what we can say is that under these conditions, there will be low turgor pressure. And when the turgor pressure is low, this can cause plants to wilt as you see here and a wilted plant is not going to be thriving as it should and so this plant here is likely to die very soon under these conditions of low turgor pressure.

Now, notice over here on the right-hand side of the image, we're showing you another plant cell, again its cell wall is around the perimeter, but notice that this time the cell membrane is going to be exerting pressure up against the cell wall. And notice that the central vacuole is actually much larger over here whereas on the left-hand side it's much smaller. And the central vacuole, again one of its roles is to fill up with water to exert turgor pressure. And so, over here in this scenario what we're saying is that there is high turgor pressure. And the high turgor pressure allows the plant to take on an upright healthy position so that that plant can thrive and survive very well. And so, this here concludes our brief introduction to the central vacuole, and we'll be able to get some practice applying these concepts as we move forward. So I'll see you all in our next video.