Editing Mitosis (section)

== Evolution ==
[[File:Mitosis vs Meiosis Daughter Cells.png|thumb|Mitosis and meiosis differences]]
[[File:Types of mitosis int.svg|thumb|Some types of cell division in prokaryotes and eukaryotes]]

There are prokaryotic [[Homology (biology)|homologs]] of all the key molecules of eukaryotic mitosis (e.g., actins, tubulins). Being a universal eukaryotic property, mitosis probably arose at the base of the eukaryotic tree. As mitosis is less complex than [[meiosis]], meiosis may have arisen after mitosis.<ref name="Wilkins-2009">{{cite journal | vauthors = Wilkins AS, Holliday R | title = The evolution of meiosis from mitosis | journal = Genetics | volume = 181 | issue = 1 | pages = 3–12 | date = January 2009 | pmid = 19139151 | pmc = 2621177 | doi = 10.1534/genetics.108.099762 }}</ref>  However, sexual reproduction involving meiosis is also a primitive characteristic of eukaryotes.<ref>Bernstein, H., Bernstein, C. Evolutionary origin and adaptive function of meiosis. In "Meiosis", Intech Publ (Carol Bernstein and Harris Bernstein editors), Chapter 3: 41–75 (2013).</ref>  Thus meiosis and mitosis may both have evolved, in parallel, from ancestral prokaryotic processes.

While in [[Fission (biology)|bacterial cell division]], after [[DNA replication|duplication of DNA]], two circular chromosomes are attached to a special region of the cell membrane, eukaryotic mitosis is usually characterized by the presence of many linear chromosomes, whose kinetochores attaches to the microtubules of the spindle. In relation to the forms of mitosis, closed intranuclear pleuromitosis seems to be the most primitive type, as it is more similar to bacterial division.<ref name="Raikov-1994"/>