Would you expect all animal and plant cells to look the same when observed under a microscope?So lets say you have an animal cell that is a cheek...

This is an excellent question. Since we categorize cells
into tissues based on similarities of both appearance and function, it stands to reason
that all the cells of a certain tissue would look the same, and they do, to certain
extent. However a closer examination would reveal that, despite the similarities among
cells of a given tissue, no two cells are exactly
alike.

This is true because of the many steps required to
differentiate a cell. Every cell in an animal or plant body traces its ancestry back to
a single, undifferentiated, fertilized egg cell. As that cell multiplies, its daughter
cells begin to follow different developmental paths, which are guided by a variety of
different factors.

Factors that help to drive cell
differentiation include hormones, crowding, and surface attachment or lack thereof. Most
cells do not function totally independently, and must create physical connections to
other cells nearby, adjusting themselves to fit between their neighbors; this results in
variability in size and shape. Due to their location some cells may have better access
to nutrients, oxygen, or sunlight, and this could cause structural or size
differences.

Over the past decade the studies of chaos
theory and of fractal geometry have opened up new avenues of study, and many tissues in
the human body are now known to show a fractal-based cell
structure.