Cytokinesis is the last step of cell division, and it can be tricky for both animal and plant cells.

In Animal Cells:

• How It Works: Animal cells split by forming a cleavage furrow, which pinches the cell into two new cells.

• Challenges:

  • Sometimes, this split isn’t even, making the new cells the wrong size.
  • If the part that helps with the pinch, called the contractile ring, doesn’t work right, cells might end up with more than one nucleus.

In Plant Cells:

• How It Works: Plant cells create something called a cell plate. This plate eventually turns into a new cell wall.

• Challenges:

  • The cell plate might have problems forming if there aren’t enough tiny bubbles called vesicles available.
  • If the new wall doesn’t form correctly, it can lead to issues with cell division.

Solutions:

• Research on how the structures inside the cell are organized could help solve these problems.
• Learning more about the processes of cytokinesis might give us ideas for making cell division more accurate.