Hi I am using confocal microscopy to analyze localization of Arabidopsis proteins. I couldn't understand the notions between intracellular and cytoplasmic (I reckon both can be called cytoplasmic).
Intracellular means anything within the boundary of the plasma membrane. That includes cytoplasm, but it also includes organelles, so they are not the same. Cytoplasm could be thought of as the stuff that organelles are suspended in, although it is tremendously complicated all on its own. Cytoplasmic also implies hydrophilic, and it can be used to indicate which leaflet of a membrane is under discussion - "The ATPase domain is on the cytoplasmic side of the membrane, while the receptor is on the extracellular side"; in that context, "intracellular" and "cytoplasmic" are interchangeable.
intracellular could be anything, ranging from cytoplasmic to even intranuclear. cytoplasmic means it's free on the cytoplasm, not attached to any organelles. on confocal you could tell a lot from the noise in the background, although it's not very scientific and it should lead you only with which way to go further.
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