Mitosis Rap: Mr. W’s Cell Division Song

Get Mr. W’s AP Bio Course Outline! Your first step to AP Bio Success: ACHIEVE MORE BIOLOGY SUCCESS with TEACHERS: Start with a free-trial account that gives your students access to interactive tutorials and allows you to monitor student work: PARENTS: A guaranteed 4 or 5 for your son or daughter on the AP Bio Exam: STUDENTS: Crush your biology course with interactive lessons with flashcards, multiple choice questions, FRQs, and interactive diagrams: PROFESSORS: Help your students master the most complex topics in biology. Sign for a free trial at: LYRICS Interphase is cell division’s longest part, nuclear membrane’s intact as it starts, The cell’s growing, cytoplasm flowing, chromosomes get duplicated, DNA gets replicated Chromosomes are spread out so they can’t be seen distinctly But note the nucleolus, the ribosome factory Outside the nucleus are two centrosomes, They later make a spindle which will pull apart the chromosomes. Prophase follows, the chromosomes condense, Each is made of two sister chromatids, (looks) like an “X“ Each sister is a clone, the closest of kin, And a centromere connects them like siamese twins, The nucleolus disappears it melts away, as the cell takes a ribosome production holiday, the centrosomes separate, start spindle formation for separating chromatids and cell elongation. CHORUS Mitosis, chromosomal ride Inter-, pro-, meta-, ana-, telophase, divide Eukaryotes go from one cell to two, Mitosis, how cells renew. In late prophase --prometaphase, The nuclear membrane disintegrates, The centrosomes migrate to the cell’s opposing sides, And between them the fibers of the spindle wend and wind, The spindle’s made of microtubule fibers which attach to chromosomes at kinetochores, a protein patch that serves like a handle that the fibers can grasp, When they pull apart the chromosomes, splitting them in half, The spindle moves the chromosomes with nudges so fine, Into linear formation on the 50 yard line A location equatorial defining metaphase, where the chromosomes are lined up on that middle place CHORUS The spindle fibers pull on the kinetochores, A cellular molecular mitotic tug of war, The centromere snaps, sisters get separated, Now these chromatids are chromosomes, they’ve been upgraded This snapping separation defines anaphase The “A“ for “apartness“, for moving different ways, Kinetochore spindle fibers separate the sisters See ’em waving goodbye, calling out “I’m gonna miss ya,“ And the other spindle fibers push and grapple like felons Makes the cell elliptical like a watermelon, In telophase membranes form ’round the chromosomes Which spread out as the nucleoli come on home CHORUS In animal cells there’s a ring of micofilaments that form at the equator and they cinch themselves in Tighter, tighter, tighter, tighter ’til the cell is in two pieces, Yeah in animals, that’s cytokinesis But it’s different in plants in them the cell divides By building a new cell wall from the inside As the Golgi sends vesicles with cellulosic goo, Which makes a plate, then a wall, divides the cell in two And instead of one mother cell we now have daughters two Identical twins, kind of old but kind of new, From your single celled beginning this is how you grew And for single celled eukaryotes it’s reproductive too! Major image credits (complete image credits available upon request) 1. The video of cell division shown during the chorus is by John Daum and Gary Gorbsky, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. 2. The image of the mitotic spindle at metaphase and the image of anaphase is from It is used by permission of the Department of Biology at Penn State University.