Definition for Cellular compartment
From Biology Forums Dictionary
Cellular compartments in cell biology comprise all of the closed parts within the cytosol of a eukaryotic cell, usually surrounded by a single or double lipid layer membrane. Most organelles are compartments: mitochondria, chloroplasts (in photosynthetic organisms), peroxisomes, lysosomes, the endoplasmic reticulum, the cell nucleus or the Golgi apparatus. Smaller elements like vesicles, and sometimes even microtubules can also be counted as compartments. It was thought that compartmentalization is not found in prokaryotic cells, but the discovery of carboxysomes and many other metabolosomes revealed that prokaryotic cells are capable of making compartmentalized organelle.
