Cell Division

Question 1

What occurs during Prophase?

Answer 1

Early:
- Chromosomes condense and become visible.
- Two sister chromatids joined at the centromere.
- Centrioles split and move to opposite ends of cell.
- The centrioles produces proteins called the mitotic spindle.

Late:
- Nuclear envelope breaks down.
- Free chromosomes in cytoplasm.

Question 2

What occurs during metaphase?

Answer 2

• Nuclear envelope is completely gone.
• Spindle fibres attach to the centromeres of each chromosome.
• The chromosomes line up at the equator of the cell.
• Pulled by spindle fibres so they line up.

Question 3

What occurs during anaphase?

Answer 3

• The chromosomes are pulled apart at the centromere.
  The spindle fibres begin pulling the sister chromatids away from each other to opposite poles of the cell.
• Chromosomes split into two V-shaped sister chromatids.

Question 4

What occurs during telophase?

Answer 4

• Chromatids reach opposite poles of the cell. They uncoil and become long and thin again.
• The nuclear envelope reforms around each set. Two nuclei.
• Cell prepares to spilt the cytoplasm and its contents.
• Cleavage furrows forms.
• Cytokinesis - cell divides into 2 identical daughter cells.

Question 5

How does telophase differ in plant cells?

Answer 5

• Plant cells have cell walls so it not possible for a cleavage furrow to form.
• Vesicles from the Golgi apparatus begin to assemble in the same place as where the metaphase plate was formed.
• The vesicles fuse with each other and the cell surface membrane, dividing the cell into two.
• New sections of cell wall then form along the new sections of membrane.