Meiosis vs. Mitosis
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In the cell cycle there are sections called mitosis and meiosis. Mitosis and meiosis are essential for life. You will see many contrasts and similarites between them.
Mitosis is the cell division of a mother cell into two daughter cells (has nothing to do with gender). When mitosis takes place, the whole cell is halved, and the two new cells are pretty tiny. Hopefully, the cells won't be too small, because the mother cell is already stuffed with loads of junk. Meiosis is the cell division of a mother cell into four daughter cells. Each of the four haploid cells only contain one pair of chromosomes. The four cells this time are even tinier; it will take some time for them to grow back to normal size.
The difference between them is
mitosis takes less time than meiosis. The stages in Mitosis are prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, and sytokinesis, while meiosis has prophase I and prophase II and so on. The outcome for both of them is also different. Mitosis divides into two cells. Meiosis divides into four cells. The purpose for mitosis is to replace lost cells, so the body won't run out of cells. Meiosis does all the planning of making the human body, whether you are a boy or girl, if you like eggplants, or should you have your mother's cuter smile.
To take it further, mitosis takes place in somatic cells (cells that make up the body). Meiosis takes place in gamete cells (sex cells). For mitosis centromeres split up in anaphase, but for meiosis, centromeres split up in anaphase II.
The similarites of mitosis and meiosis are only a few. Mitosis and Meiosis both have telophase that occurs during telophase and they use spindle fibers (microtubles) to separate chromatids from each other. Before the process, the chromosomes are already replicated. Mitosis and meiosis only occurs in eukaryotic cells. Prokaryotic cells like bacteria go through another process called 'binary fission'.
Learning contrasts and similarites in biology is a great way to understand the amazing world of tiny cells. I still think that meiosis is more important than meiosis. But hey, in America, it's a free country, eh?
Photo by Zephyrance Lou