What would happen if sister chromatids were not separated during mitosis?

Answer 1

If sister chromatids were not separated during mitosis, the daughter cells would not have an exact copy of the parent cell's chromosomes. One daughter cell would be missing a chromosome and the other daughter cell would have two copies of one chromosome. The most likely situation is that both daughter cells would die.

Answer 2

Technically the cell isn't a haploid it's still considered a diploid. Look at the differences between mitosis and Meiosis I. In Meiosis I none of the centromeres are broken. This means that the cell needs to go through ANOTHER division to break those suckers apart and ensure that 2 haploids are produced. If that didn't happen then the cells would have all mom or all dad chromosomes with some of the other all up in there. Also look at the entire process of Meiosis and try to imagine what would happen if crossing over DIDNT occur. I dont know if that made any sense. Lo siento

Answer 3

Although errors in mitosis are rare, the process may go wrong, especially during early cellular divisions in the zygote. Mitotic errors can be especially dangerous to the organism because future offspring from this parent cell will carry the same disorder.

In non-disjunction, a chromosome may fail to separate during anaphase. One daughter cell will receive both sister chromosomes and the other will receive none. This results in the former cell having three chromosomes coding for the same thing (two sisters and a homologue), a condition known as trisomy, and the latter cell having only one chromosome (the homologous chromosome), a condition known as monosomy. These cells are considered aneuploidic cells and these abnormal cells can cause cancer.[18]

Mitosis is a traumatic process. The cell goes through dramatic changes in ultrastructure, its organelles disintegrate and reform in a matter of hours, and chromosomes are jostled constantly by probing microtubules. Occasionally, chromosomes may become damaged. An arm of the chromosome may be broken and the fragment lost, causing deletion. The fragment may incorrectly reattach to another, non-homologous chromosome, causing translocation. It may reattach to the original chromosome, but in reverse orientation, causing inversion. Or, it may be treated erroneously as a separate chromosome, causing chromosomal duplication. The effect of these genetic abnormalities depend on the specific nature of the error. It may range from no noticeable effect, cancer induction, or organism death.

Scientists noted that most animals use a sex-chromosome mechanism for sex determination. In fruit flies and humans, diploid males have the sex chromosomes XY, whereas diploid females have XX. A triploid fly or human would have three chromosomes along with three sets of autosomes. In such a triploid, XXX will result in a female. However, a zygote having XXY XYY may not produce a male. Rather, it may result in an intersex organism, with abnormal mixed male and female reproductive organs.

While human triploids do not survive, this is not the case for fruit flies. The XXY or XYY is an intersex, sterile form, but the triploid female is fertile. If the 3N female is mated to a 2N XY male, however, only a relatively few offspring will emerge, because many of the eggs will have an incorrect number of chromosomes. This state of excesses or deficits of chromosomes in an otherwise diploid or triploid cell is called aneuploidy. Aneuploid embryos rarely survive in humans or other animals, although there are exceptions (such as infants born with Down syndrome).

Human triploid embryos are a major reason for first-trimester spontaneous abortions (popularly called miscarriages). Polyploid amphibians, on the other hand, have evolved an alternate means of sex determination that allows them to have fertile triploid or tetraploid (4N) forms. As with polyploid plants, these forms are generally larger in size than their diploid relatives. It is not yet known why stillborn or short-lived human triploids do not display this enlarged size.