Danny Rivas
George Nassif
Vuong Troung
Josh Richardson
University of California, Merced
Biology 001 Laboratory Section 5
Ms. Ye Zhu
February 4, 2015
Cell Cycle and Mitosis Within the cell cycle, there are four distinct phases which prepare the cell for separation as well as an additional phase where the cell can exit the cell cycle. The G1 phase is the first phase in which the cell commits to divide and grows in preparation. The S phase replicates each chromosome to create pairs of sister chromatids. The G2 phase synthesizes proteins in preparation of cell division in the M phase. The last phase of the cycle consists of 4 sub phases which the sister chromatids are separated and enclosed in a nuclear envelop …show more content…
The first phase of mitosis is prophase which serves to condense the DNA replicated in interphase and dissolve the nuclear envelop to allow spindle fibers to connect to the kinetochore in prometaphase. Next in metaphase the sister chromatids line up in the middle of the cell to prepare for separation by being pulled towards the poles in anaphase. Lastly in telophase, the nuclear envelop reappears around the now condensed chromosomes and the cleavage furrow or cell plate forms to separate the cell into two (Brooker & Widmaier, 2015). The cell cycle and mitosis lab consisted of three parts covering the essentials of identifying and recording of observations of the different phases of mitosis. The objectives activity IA and for IB were to provide us a visualization of mitosis and apply the classification of each phase and its role in the cell cycle. In activity IC, our objective was to carry out slide making techniques that will be a fundamental skill in future labs. If mitosis takes a relatively small time to carry out with comparison to the rest of the cell cycle, then more cells will most likely be found in interphase than being …show more content…
Next, examine a prepared root tip slide under a light microscope to survey and count a hundred cells in various phases of the cell cycle and record the data. The next activity involves preparation of a root tip slide with the addition of hydrochloric acid (HCl) and Toluidine blue to aid in the detection of phases of mitosis. Once the slides were prepared, count 200 cells in mitosis and find the percentage of each phase present. However, since there was a possibility for a mistake while preparing the root tip slide, the decision was made to deviate from the protocol in this respect and make two slides in case one did not come out