Question

Difference between Mitosis and Meiosis and division of parent cells .

Answer 1

Dear student,

Meiosis and meiotic cell division are same.

Following is the difference between mitosis and meiosis:

Mitosis			Meiosis
(i)	It involves single division, resulting in the formation of two daughter cells.	(i)	It involves two successive divisions, namely meiosis I and II, resulting in the formation of four daughter cells.
(ii)	It is also known as equational division as the daughter cell has the same number of chromosomes as the parent cell.	(ii)	Meiosis I is known as reductional division where the chromosome number is reduced to half. Meiosis II is known as equational division where the sister chromatids separate while the chromosome number remains the same.
(iii)	The prophase stage is short and does not comprise of synapsis, crossing over, and the formation of chiasmata.	(iii)	Prophase I stage is very long. It comprises of five stages. In the zygotene stage of meiosis I, the pairing of homologous chromosomes takes place. During the pachytene stage, crossing over occurs while in the diplotene stage, chiasmata formation occurs.
(iv)	It plays a significant role in cell growth, repair, and healing of wounds.	(iv)	It brings about variation and maintains constant chromosome number from one generation to another.
(v)	It mainly takes place in the somatic cells.	(v)	It mainly takes place in the reproductive cells.

Cell division is a process by which a cell divides into two or more daughter cells. It is not necessary that a cell always divides into two daughter cells. Cell can divide into two or more daughter cells. Mitosis results in two daughter cells whereas meiosis result in four daughter cells.

However, I would also like to mention that cell cycle and division is under the control of genes and during each cycle, cell duplicates or doubles its DNA only once. To ensure that each daughter cell has equal number of chromosomes, cell generally divides into two daughter cells. Thus, genetic control and replication of DNA together are responsible for the formation of two daughter cells from a single cell.

Regards