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Unlike a bacterium, which generally consists of a single intracellular compartment surrounded by a plasma membrane, a eukaryotic cell is elaborately subdivided into functionally distinct, membrane-enclosed compartments. Each compartment, or organelle, contains its own characteristic set of enzymes and other specialized molecules, and complex distribution systems transport specific products from one compartment to another. To understand the eukaryotic cell, it is essential to know how the cell creates and maintains these compartments, what occurs in each of them, and how molecules move between them.