Ch17: Cell Divison

Opening questions
• What is the starting point of a new organism for all species?
• How does a single cell, the zygote, become a multicellular organism like you?
• There are two kinds of cell division, what are they?
• So an organism grows bigger by making new cells of the same size. Can it grow by
making the cell size bigger?
Before mitosis (you do not need to remember this)
• Interphase, which means in between mitosis phases
• This is the state a cell spends over 90% of its time in its lifetime or cell cycle
• During interphase, the cell will double its cell content, including DNA, in preparation
for cell division
Four stages of mitosis (PMAT)
• Prophase:
• Chromosomes start to condense
• Nuclear envelope breaks down
• Nucleolus disappears
• Centrosomes (in animal cells) start to move to the opposite poles
• Spindle grows between centromeres as they move apart
• Metaphase:
• Microtubules of the spindle attach to, move and line up chromosomes at the equatorial plate of
the cell
• Anaphase:
• The two sister chromatids in each homologous pair separate, pulled at the centromere by
microtubules towards the poles of the cell
• Telophase:
• Nuclear envelope reassembles
• Nucleolus reappears
• Chromosomes decondense
• Spindle disappears
Cytokinesis (in animal cells)
• The cell’s plasma membrane pinches or furrows inward, breaking into
two daughter cells
• The two daughter cells each have a complete set of 46 chromosomes,
identical with each other and with the original cell.
Mitosis happens when..
• Organisms grow in size, from small to big
• Repairing wounds
• Replacing worn or lost cells in
• The skin
• Digestive track
• Red blood cells that have no nucleus and only live for about 3 months
Meiosis for production of gametes
• It is more complex than mitosis
• The mother cell divides twice (meiosis I and meiosis II) to produce 4 haploid cells or
gametes
• The 4 gametes are genetically different from each other and from the mother cell
Meiosis I and independent assortment
• Meiosis I includes prophase I, metaphase I, anaphase I and telophase I
• Prophase I is similar to prophase in mitosis, i.e. chromosomes condense, nuclear
envelope and nucleolus disappear, centrosomes move to opposite poles, spindle appears
• Metaphase I is crucially different from metaphase in mitosis. In metaphase I of meiosis,
the 23 homologous pairs (in human cells) line up at the equatorial plate. In each pair,
one chromosome (already duplicated and contain 2 sister chromatids) from father, the
other chromosome from the mother.
• Each chromosome of the 23 pairs is on the left of the equatorial plate, the other in each
pair is on the right side of the plate, but for each homologous pair, which chromosome,
father’s or mother’s, stays on the left, which on the right, is completely random
• Then in anaphase I and telophase I, the homologous pairs separate into two nuclei and
then two daughter cells.
• There is enormous variation for 23 pairs to sort independently and randomly
(223=8,388,608).
• What’s more: during metaphase I, crossing-over occurs, further increasing variation
Meiosis II
• Meiosis II is similar to mitosis
• During anaphase II, the sister chromatids joined at the centromere get separated into
and eventually packaged inside each gamete cell
• So after two rounds of division, each parent cell produces 4 haploid gametes,
genetically different from each other.
• Consider that a healthy male delivers between 200 million and 500 million sperm into
a females vagina during one intercourse, and everyone of the sperm is unique
genetically.
• And a human female produces many thousands of eggs in her lifetime, also with each
egg genetically different from all other eggs.
Both genes and environment cause variation in a population

• The story of pea plants on Page 245/246

• Nature and nurture both play a part in all species
• When a farmer wants to keep growing a high quality crop, should he use the seeds of
that crop, or clone it?