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The function or significance of mitosis, is the maintenance of the chromosomal set; each formed cell receives chromosomes that are alike in composition and equal in number to the chromosomes of the parent cell. Mitosis occurs in the following circumstances: Development and growth: The number of cells within an organism increases by mitosis.
Cell division in prokaryotes (binary fission) and eukaryotes (mitosis and meiosis). The thick lines are chromosomes, and the thin blue lines are fibers pulling on the chromosomes and pushing the ends of the cell apart. The cell cycle in eukaryotes: I = Interphase, M = Mitosis, G 0 = Gap 0, G 1 = Gap 1, G 2 = Gap 2, S = Synthesis, G 3 = Gap 3.
The list of organisms by chromosome count describes ploidy or numbers of chromosomes in the cells of various plants, animals, protists, and other living organisms.This number, along with the visual appearance of the chromosome, is known as the karyotype, [1] [2] [3] and can be found by looking at the chromosomes through a microscope.
The eukaryotic cell cycle consists of four distinct phases: G 1 phase, S phase (synthesis), G 2 phase (collectively known as interphase) and M phase (mitosis and cytokinesis). M phase is itself composed of two tightly coupled processes: mitosis, in which the cell's nucleus divides, and cytokinesis, in which the cell's cytoplasm and cell membrane divides forming two daughter cells.
Between the beginning of the G 1 phase (which is also after mitosis has occurred) and R, the cell is known as being in the G 1-pm subphase, or the post-mitotic phase. After R and before S, the cell is known as being in G 1-ps, or the pre S phase interval of the G 1 phase. [4]
Mitosis divides the chromosomes in a cell nucleus. During mitosis chromosome segregation occurs routinely as a step in cell division (see mitosis diagram). As indicated in the mitosis diagram, mitosis is preceded by a round of DNA replication, so that each chromosome forms two copies called chromatids .
Because the chromosome number is generally reduced only by the specialized process of meiosis, the somatic cells of the body inherit and maintain the chromosome number of the zygote by mitosis. However, in many situations somatic cells double their copy number by means of endoreduplication as an aspect of cellular differentiation. For example ...
The autosomes contain the rest of the genetic hereditary information. All act in the same way during cell division. Human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes (22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes), giving a total of 46 per cell. In addition to these, human cells have many hundreds of copies of the mitochondrial genome.