Since 1950s, the study of cell ultrastructure has made people have a clear understanding of the fine structure that can't be seen under the optical microscope. The achievements of molecular biology and molecular genetics based on prokaryotes have made people understand the basic problems such as genetic code, central rule and gene expression regulation of prokaryotes, which directly promoted the development of cell biology. However, because prokaryotic cells are different from eukaryotic cells, the latter has a nuclear membrane, and chromatin contains histone and non-histone besides DNA, and the structure in cytoplasm is much more complicated than the former. Therefore, it is necessary to know to what extent the achievements made in prokaryotes are applicable to eukaryotic cells, and to study how heredity and development are manipulated in eukaryotic cells.
Although cell biology is a relatively young subject, it can be traced back to an earlier era of academic thought. In 1883, German embryologist W. Lu expounded his thoughts on inheritance and development. He assumes that a fertilized egg contains all genetic materials, which are not evenly distributed to daughter cells during cleavage, and this heterogeneous division determines the fate of daughter cells and their offspring. Weismann, a German zoologist, developed this idea and put forward the embryoid theory, arguing that the unequal division of blastomeres led to the differentiation of cells. Although these opinions have been proved to be wrong, it can be seen that the problems to be solved in cell biology have been put forward at that time. Later, in his masterpiece Intracellular Development and Inheritance, E.B. Wilson clearly pointed out that cells are the basic units of life activities, and the development and inheritance of these life phenomena should be studied on cells. 1934, American geneticist and embryologist T.H. Morgan wrote in his book Embryology and Genetics, which tried to integrate development and inheritance: "It is conceivable that the differences in the initial protoplasm regions will affect the activity of genes, and then genes will adversely affect protoplasm, which will start a series of new and corresponding reactions. In this way, we can outline the gradual establishment and differentiation of various parts of the embryo. " However, in Morgan's era, because cytology has not been closely related to other neighboring disciplines, or other disciplines have not been able to carry out research on development and heredity at the cellular level, cell biology can only flourish after the 1950s when all aspects are gradually mature. From the research content, the development of cell biology can be divided into three levels, namely, microscopic level, ultramicroscopic level and molecular level. From the vertical axis of time, the history of cell biology can be roughly divided into four main stages:
The first stage:1from the late 6th century to11930s, is the stage of cell discovery and cell knowledge accumulation. Through the observation of a large number of animals and plants, people gradually realize that different organisms are composed of various cells.
The second stage: 19 from the 1930s to the early 20th century, after the formation of cell theory, it opened up a new research field. The main feature of this period was to study the structure and function of cells at the micro level. The accumulation of knowledge of morphology, embryology and chromosome makes people realize the important role of cells in life activities. 1893 The publication of Hertzwig's monograph Zell and Jiwei marked the birth of cytology. Later, Cells in Development and Genetics edited by Wilson 1896 of Columbia University and Cytology edited by Agal 1920 of Melbourne University were the earliest textbooks in this field.
The third stage: in the 1930s and 1970s, after the appearance of electron microscope technology, cytology entered the third development period. In this short period of 40 years, not only the ultrastructure of cells was discovered, but also the functions of different structures such as cell membrane, mitochondria and chloroplast were recognized, which made cytology develop into cell biology. General Cytology, published by De Robertis et al. in 1924, was named Cell Biology in the fourth edition of 1965, which is one of the earliest textbooks of cell biology.
The fourth stage: From the emergence of gene recombination technology in the 1970s to the present, the combination of cell biology and molecular biology is getting closer and closer, and it is the main task to study the molecular structure of cells and its role in life activities. Gene regulation, signal transduction, tumor biology, cell differentiation and apoptosis are contemporary research hotspots.