To observe the process of mitosis in action in onion (alium) root cells. To gain a better understanding of the workings of mitosis.

The majority of the cells will be in interphase. Of the cells undergoing mitosis, the majority will be in prophase, while very few will be in metaphase, anaphase, and telophase.

View prepared onion (alium) root slides under a microscope. Diagram and describe the five phases of mitosis:

1. Interphase
2. Prophase
3. Metaphase
4. Anaphase
5. Telophase/Cytokinesis

For a description of each stage, just click on the image.	Interphase	Prophase
Metaphase	Anaphase	Telophase

Stage of Mitosis	Cells Counted	Percentage
Interphase	70	61
Prophase	28	24
Metaphase	2	2
Anaphase	5	4
Telophase	10	9

Most of the cells that we observed were in interphase (61%). Interphase is the longest stage of the cell cycle. Of the cells that were in mitosis, most were in prophase (24%). There were only a few cells in metaphase, anaphase, and telophase.

Excel charts can be seen by clicking on Cells Counted or Percentage here or in the table above.

From our experiment of counting the number of cells in various stages of mitosis in an onion root tip, we found cells to be in interphase 61% of the time. However, the text asserts that "typically, interphase lasts for at least 90% of the total time required for the cell cycle." The cells we observed are specialized cells in that they exist only in onion root-tips. Since they are at the tip of an onion root, more of their time needs to be spent in mitosis so they can divide faster and the root can grow faster. Therefore, since the main function of onion root-tip cells is mitosis and not other cell activites, we believe that onion root cells spend a smaller percent of the time they have for cell division during interphase than most other cells.

We found that 24% of the cell's time was spent in prophase, 2% in metaphase, 4% in anaphase, and 9% in telophase. This simply further demonstrates our belief that the onion root-tip needs to go faster so it spends more if it's time in mitosis than a normal cell.

Another explanation of the results we got could be because of the small amount of sample information. With so little data, it could be hard to get a good representation of real-life cells.

Click on the links below to read our comparisons and contrasts of the different phases in mitosis and meiosis.

	Mitosis/Meiosis
Compare	Interphase Prophase Metaphase Anaphase Telophase/Cytokinesis
Contrast	Interphase Prophase Metaphase Anaphase Telophase/Cytokinesis

During this procedure, there were many instances when we found "gray areas" in terms of classifying the cell. Our greatest challenge was to determine whether a cell was in interphase or prophase. In some cases the nuclear membrane was still intact, but the nucleoli had already disappeared. This can be classified as neither prophase nor interphase, since the cell probably was somewhere in between. So in cases like this, we may have made the wrong choice.