Chapter 5: Cell Division

• The growth of a young animal or plant into an adult and the development of sex cells, all involve cell multiplication.
• In order to multiply, cells undergo cell division in which one cell divides into two, two into four, four into eight and so on.
• Cell division is accompanied or preceded by the formation of new cell components to ensure the products of cell division (the daughter cells) are essentially similar to the parent cell.
• There are two types of cell division. In mitosis which is the type of cell division which takes place during an organism's is growth, the daughter cells contain exactly the same number of chromosomes as the parent cell.
• Chromosomes carry the genetic information of an organism. As such they determine the characteristics of the cell and its progeny.
• In the other type of cell division called meiosis the daughter cells produced contain half the total number of chromosomes present in the parent cell. Meiosis is involved in the formation of gametes.