Mitosis - Simple Cell Division.

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Mitosis - Simple Cell Division

Mitosis is the process of nuclear diffusion in a living cell where the carriers of hereditary information, chromosomes, are duplicated and the two copies are distributed to identical daughter nuclei. Mitosis is almost always accompanied by cell division, cytokinesis, although this is sometimes considered a part of the mitotic process. The process of mitosis is fundamentally the same in all cells. However, while animal cells apparently divide by pinching into two separate cells, plant cells develop a cell plate, which becomes a cellulose cell wall between the two daughter cells. The importance of mitosis is that each cell formed receives chromosomes that are alike in composition and equal in number to the chromosomes of the parent cell.

Mitosis can be simply described as having four stages-prophase, metaphase, anaphase and telophase. The stages follow one another without interruption. The entire mitotic process averages about sixty minutes, one hour, in duration, and the period between cell divisions, known as the interphase or interkinesis, can vary greatly but is considerably longer.

Interphase

In this stage the chromosomes are dispersed and appear as a network of filaments, long thin threads, called the chromatin. At some