Meiosis in Motion

 

Meiosis is a specialized type of cell division where gametes (sex cells, sperm and/or eggs) divide twice results in the production of four haploid daughter cells. The resulting daughter cells have exactly half of the chromosomes as the starting cell. The stages of meiosis can be split into meiosis I and meiosis II, to identify the first and seconds splits. The first stage of meiosis I, interphase I is when the cell is doing its specified job and is replicating DNA. During second stage of meiosis, prophase I, chromatin is tightly coiled into chromosomes, then cross over to exchange information, the spindle fibers also begin to extend during this phase. In metaphase I, the homologue pairs line up along the metaphase plate and prepare for separation. The spindle fibers extend and pull apart the homologue pairs during anaphase I and move to opposite sides of the cell. Finally, in telophase I the chromosomes are at opposite sides of the cell and the cell membrane is split during cytokinesis (occurs at the end of telophase.) The processes of prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase occur once again in meiosis II. The end result of the two splits are four haploid daughter cells.

The process of meiosis can be very confusing, especially with every important little piece that is involved. Taylor and I created a stop motion animation to breakdown and recreate the steps of meiosis. Although the entire process of creating the stop motion video was very time consuming, creating the animation overall helped us both understand the concept and steps of meiosis more thoroughly!

To check out the animation: