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Root tip squash - mitosis

how could you assess how long each stage of mitosis takes to be completed?
Reply 1
Count the numbers of cells in each stage of mitosis that you can see under the microscope - so that's interphase as well as mitosis, plus cytokinesis if you can pick that out.
Add the numbers together to get the total number of cells and calculate the relative length of each stage from that - so for example if you counted 20 cells in prophase out of 110 cells total, do 20/120x100 to get 0.167 of the cell cycle being spent in prophase, expressed as a decimal.
Then find out the length of the cell cycle for that specific organism and calculate the actual length of the stage in hours or minutes. So if the cell cycle of an onion, for example, is 24 hours long, it's probably easier to convert that to minutes, which in this case is 24x60 = 1440. After that, multiply by the decimal - 1440x0.167 = 240.8 minutes, the length of prophase in minutes. Repeat for every stage if you need to calculate them all.

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