What is the difference between mitosis ane meiosis?
Answer Hi Chris– While mitosis and meiosis both involve replication of the DNA and production of daughter cells, there are several major differences with respect to how each process is performed and the identities of the cells that result. Mitosis is the division of somatic (body) cells… If you cut your finger, for instance, the new skin that was formed resulted from mitotic divions. Similarly, when blood cells die (from age) the hematopoietic stem cells in your bone marrow divide to give rise to new blood cells. Mitosis proceeds as follows: When a cell decides it is time to divide, it initiates a series of steps that result in replication of the genome (all the chromosomes). A normal non-mitotic human cell has 46 chromosomes (23 pairs)–during the initial phases of mitosis, there are twice this many (92). One set of each chromosome is pulled toward opposite poles of the cell, and then the cell divides–resulting in two identical cells, each with a complete complement of the genome.
