Leave the end of interphase right over here. We get into cytokineses which will then split each of the nuclei into a separate cell when Will turn into two nuclei that each have the original Mitosis is the process by which this one nucleus And now, we're gonna talkĪbout the actual cell division. We talked about interphase which is the bulk of aĬell's life cycle as it grows and its DNA replicates,Īnd it grows some more. To see the Caenorhabditis elegans chromosomes:įinally, the appearance of chromosomes changes dramatically depending on the method used to visualize them - for some examples see:ĪDDENDUM: The cell-cycle stage also has a huge effect on the appearance of chromosomes. the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans) don't have localized centromeres, which makes their chromosomes look like bars rather than a variation on an X-shape. (This is actually from someone with Down syndrome.)

To see the variety of shapes in the human karyotype (collection of chromosomes): This wikipedia article has a decent diagram and describes the complicated nomenclature (naming) for these different shapes: This means that that when you look (after staining) at the condensed chromosomes in a cell you can see chromosomes with chromatids that look like they only have one arm, others that have one long and one short arm, and some that will look like the two arms are of equal length. Yes - the centromere can be located anywhere along the DNA strand.