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What is protoplasm?
In biology, protoplasm is the living substance inside thecell. At the simplest level, it is divisible into cytoplasm andnucleoplasm. It is also sometimes termed bioplasm , …(Beale:meaning the essential substance of living matter within a cell) andis distinct from non-living cell components lumped under "ergasticsubstances". Ergastic substances can occur in the protoplasm. Inmany plant cells most of the volume of the cell is not occupied byprotoplasm, but by "tonoplast": a large water filled vacuoleenclosed by a membrane. The idea that protoplasm is divisible into a ground substancecalled "cytoplasm" and a structural body called the Cell nucleusreflects most of the more primitive knowledge of cell structurethat preceded the development of powerful micrographs of organicand inorganic substances, when it seemed that cytoplasm wasmysteriously directed by the nucleus and controlled by the cellmembrane. Today, it is known that the cytoplasm is structurallyvery complex, and that protoplasm is living because of thecomplexity of the "cytoplasmic organelles" and their carefulseparation and orchestration of multiple chemical processes. Protoplasm exists in three forms: in the solid state, the liquidstate and sometimes in a combined solid and liquid state. Whether the protoplasm is in either of the three forms depends uponthe physiological state of the cell. ( Full Answer )