Cell Division
One of the primary characteristics of all living things is their ability to reproduce. All living things reproduce. Reproduction occurs at both the somatic cellular level and at the organismic level. Meiosis and the generation of germ cells (ovum and sperm) will not be discussed this semester. Mitosis which is cellular or somatic division is one of the topics of today's lab. Mitosis is the process by which a typical body cell replicates to produce two identical offspring. This is an essential process for growth and repair of tissues. It is a process which occurs millions of times a day in every human being. Estimates are that approximately 8,000 new blood cells are produced in your body every second. That is a lot of cell division!
Cell division or mitosis is actually characterized by two separate events, division of the nuclear material (mitosis or karyokinesis) and division of the cytoplasm (cytokinesis). Inherent in our understanding of cell division is the assumption that our daughter cells will be viable, living cells. For our daughter cells to survive they must have all of the master instructions (DNA) needed for life and an adequate supply of raw materials (cytoplasm) to enable metabolism. I liken cell division to building a house. In order to build a house you need a detailed blueprint (DNA) and the blocks, wood and morter (cytoplasm) with which to build the structure. You can't build a house without blueprints and you can't build a house without raw materials. Similarly cells can't survive without all of their 'instructions' or without their raw materials.
