Mitosis and Meiosis: Significance and Description

Academic report

Table of Contents
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................13

MAIN BODY
Question 11.1: Give a description of mitosis and meiosis and discuss their significance.
Answer: All life on the planet starts and progress via a series of cellular phenomena. Cell
division is necessary to the growth, transformation and development. It is the generally
responsible to the growth of a living organism via the formation of the new cells or the
replacement of damaged, worn-out and old cells. Cell division is the constant procedure, that
continuously repeats in whole of the life cycle of living being. Renewal and cell division are the
buildings blocks of life at the end of this process, organism is inevitable to death. There two
process of cell division one is known as sexual process which is also called meiosis and another
is known as asexual process which is also called as mitosis (Ahluwalia, 2018).
 MITOSIS
In the mitosis process, nucleus of the living cell replicates and divides the original DNA
of the cells. It is the cell division process to replicate, differentiate and growth. It makes two
diploid daughter cells which are genetically similar as the parent. Mitosis is a six stage process
which are given below:
 Interphase: It occur before initiations of cell division. DNA replicates. Centrosomes or
centrioles appear. Organelles, ATP and proteins formed. It is not part of mitosis, it is only
the preparation for the mitosis.
 Prophase: in this phase, centrioles move to opposite sides of the cell. In nucleus,
appearance of chromosome occurs. Nuclear envelop disappear and DNA condensed and
visible to microscope. Centrioles attach to chromosomes.
 Metaphase: in this stage, spindles attach to the chromosomes and pull them to the centre
of the cell. Chromosome line up across the cell's equator (Berger, 2022).
 Anaphase: in this phase, chromosome split into two chromatid and migrate towards the
opposite poles of the cell and by microtubules it pulled towards centrosomes.
 Telophase: in this stage nuclear envelop initiate to regenerate around chromatids.
Chromatids unwind. Spindles starts break down and cell surface membrane initiate to
split from middle. Each half of the cell have similar DNA and single centrosome of
original cells.
 Cytokinesis: in this stage, four process occur that is, initiation, contraction, membrane
insertion and completion (Francomano, 2021).
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 MEOSIS
In this process of the sexual reproduction, there are two parents which give rise to an young one
with a specific combination of gene which are not similar to any parents but combine their DNA.
In this process somatic cells have two set of chromosomes that is, one set through each parent.
Meiosis produce four haploid cells which occurs through two stages that are meiosis 1 and
meiosis 2 .
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Illustration
1: Stages of mitosis
Source: https://www.sciencefacts.net/mitosis.html