In order to grow, cells have two options. They must either replicate themselves to create more cells, or the cells themselves must expand in volume. In humans, tissues such as the skin and blood contain cells that are actively dividing, while other tissues such as fat contain cells that expand. …
Read More »Variation in Chromosome Types: The Lampbrush Chromosome
If we observe the nucleus of each cell, we’ll find that the DNA molecule in it is packaged into thread-like structures. These are called chromosomes that carry hereditary information for everything, i.e., height to eye color. These chromosomes are made up of DNA that are tightly coiled many times around …
Read More »Basic Ideas of Somatic Hybridization
Do you have ever heard the term ‘POMATO’ ? Pomato is the result of the hybridization of potato and tomato. From a somatic cell developed by the fusion of protoplasts from potato and tomato, is cultured to get a new harvest- pomato. In this harvest, the characteristics both from potato …
Read More »Mitosis or Equational Division
Mitosis is a kind of cell division that occurs in somatic cell of the body. It produces two daughter cells in each division. And those daughter cells have the same number of chromosomes as in mother cells i.e a haploid mother cell (n) will produce two haploid daughter cells (n) …
Read More »Cell Division: Types, Stages & Processes
All living things, including human beings, are made up of cells. Some organisms have only one cell during their whole lifespan by which they carry out all the physiological processes they require to survive. These are called unicellular organisms (e.g. bacteria, yeast etc.). But there are also many other organisms …
Read More »Cytology: An Introduction
As human beings are social creatures, they live in a social environment. If we look around us, we can see mainly two types of things in the environment. One is living things & another is non-living things. Living things are those which possess life. Now, what is life? It’s not …
Read More »Cytotaxonomy: Study of Chromosome Behaviour
Chromosome behaviour is an important factor that determine the pattern of variation and taxonomic distinctness. Pairing behavior and subsequent separation of chromosome occurs at meiosis. In reporting results of pairing studies, univalents are represented by Is, bivalents by IIs, etc. Some taxonomic information can be gained from the study of …
Read More »Cytotaxonomy: Study of Chromosome Structure
Study of chromosome structure is very important in cytotaxonomic studies. It includes chromosome size, shape and position of centromere (i.e. arm-length ratio of each chromosome in the genome) Chromosomal size and shape are also important as taxonomic criteria in taxonomy. For examples, The chromosomal ratio if Mediola and Trillium of …
Read More »Karyotype and Idiogram : A way to provide preliminary idea about Genome
Karyotype Most living organisms have chromosomes as the structural and functional units of genetic information in their cells. The number and appearance of chromosomes vary species to species. A karyotype is an organized profile of total chromosomes in a species or in an individual organism. It gives a preliminary idea …
Read More »Chromosomal Aberration: Structural and Numerical
What is Chromosomal Aberration? Any type of change in the structure and number of chromosomes due to certain irregularities during cell division is known as chromosomal aberration. Broadly such aberrations are divided into two major groups. Structural aberration Numerical aberration Again, structural aberrations are of 4 types. Such as: Deletion …
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