Abstract:
The life of a eukaryotic cell is organised into a circular wheel which culminates in the
division of a cell that has duplicated all its essential constituents, into two daughter
cells with equal shares of the duplicated material. Central to this cycle is the
replication of DNA that helps in doubling of the genetic material followed by equal
partitioning of it which results in two identical daughter cells. These two processes,
DNA replication and chromosome segregation, are temporally separated into two
phases of the cell cycle termed as S (synthetic) phase and M (mitotic) phase
respectively. Two gap phases G1 and G2 separate the S and M phases, respectively.
The G1, G2 and S phases are collectively termed as the interphase whereas the mitotic
phase is further subdivided into prophase, metaphase, anaphase and telophase.