We focused on cell divison in Mitosis and Meiosis lab. How would the mitotic phase be different in plants?

 

Although humans and plants are both made of eukaryotic cells, they do not share all the features in the mitotic phase. This is because the plant cells and the animal cells are have many structural differences. For instance, the plant cells have a cell wall and a chloroplast, the animal cells do not have. On the other hand, the animal cells possess cilia and centrioles which the plants do not. In site of these differences, both plant and animal cells divide by the two common methods: mitosis and meiosis. Mitosis in both animal and plant cells involves two stages: karyokinesis (division of nucleus) and cytokinesis(division of cytoplasm). The most important and observable difference is how they form the daughter cells during cytokinesis. During that stage, animal cells form furrow or cleavage that gives way to formation of daughter cells. Due to the existence of the rigid cell wall, plant cells don't form furrows. Instead, they from cell plate at the center of the dividing cells separating the two forming components. During telophase, plant cells phragmoplast forms in the center of the cell.

In addition, plant cells do not change their shape before cell division, while animal cells usually become spherical before cell division. Another difference is that animal cells have centrioles that support the organization of mitotic spindle and completion of cytokinesis. Plant cells don't have those centrioles. The spindle fibers formed by the centrioles in animal cells show aster arrangement (they look like a star giving out rays) and thus they are called amphiastral spindle fibers, while in plant cells, NO aster is formed and therefore plant cells have anastral spindle fibers. Lastly, animal cells divide everywhere and all the time while plant cells divide in a specialized region called the meristems. 

Step-by-step explanation

You can see in the image below that in animal cells (left side of the image), the plasma membrane of the parent cell pinches inward along the cell's equator until two daughter cells form. In plant cells (right side of the image), a cell plate forms along the equator of the parent cell. Then, a new plasma membrane and cell wall form along each side of the cell plate.

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