prokaryotes

Cultural  

1. Organisms whose cells do not have a nucleus in which DNA is housed and which lack many of the organelles found in more advanced cells. The kingdom of Monera or Prokaryotae is composed of single-celled prokaryotes. (Compare eukaryotes.)

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It is thought that prokaryotes were the first cells to appear on Earth.

Example Sentences

The researchers examined more than one hundred gene families across multiple biological systems and focused on the traits that separate eukaryotes from prokaryotes.

From Science Daily • Dec. 6, 2025

Bacteria are the best-understood prokaryotes, and because of their simple genetic structure, provided the team with the ideal host to analyze the mechanisms and machinery involved in the ribosome-RNAP coupling during gene expression.

From Science Daily • Nov. 28, 2024

Analyzing microbes in Tirez soil samples from 2002 and 2021 for a study in Scientific Reports, Fairén and his colleagues found that single-celled organisms called prokaryotes had adapted to thrive in extremely dry sediments.

From Scientific American • May 27, 2023

In a deep-sea hydrothermal vent, there is no light, so prokaryotes would be chemotrophs instead of phototrophs.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2015

It has been suggested that flagellae and cilia were once spirochetes that joined up with the other prokaryotes when nucleated cells were being pieced together.

From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas