Mitosis vs. Meiosis The dividing of cells is an important bodily function for an organism to survive. The way our bodies work is very delicate and precise. Therefore the ways our body has to function to sustain life then must be handled in such ways there are two main ways cells divide in an organism; mitosis and meiosis. And they are similar in the way they divide cells, but they do have their differences First the big main difference between the two is that mitosis is for asexual reproduction and meiosis is used in the preparation for sexual reproduction. Mitosis creates body cells that are used so cells divide for things like growth and renewal of cells that die compared meiosis which makes the egg or sperm sex cell. Second, in mitosis the daughter cells contain diploid or two copies of each chromosome where in meiosis the daughter cells have haploids, which are only one copy of each chromosome. In addition, mitosis is a parental cell that divides once into two daughters cells with identical genetic information as the original compared to meiosis which divide twice resulting in four cells each containing only half the number of chromosomes, but each chromosome contains information from both parents making the cell unique. Lastly during the prophase phase in mitosis chromosomes condense, a spindle begins to form from the centrioles, the centrioles begin tom separate, and the nuclear envelope fragments. In meiosis it is very similar except the chromosomes attach to the membrane of the nucleus and pair up, which is called synapses, and cross over at points causing in the individuality of the daughter cells. Just like their differences, the two forms of cell division do have their similarities. First, both mitosis and meiosis go through the same main phases; interphase, prophase,