Why are prokaryotes able to successfully divide every 20 minutes but eukaryotic division is significantly longer?
1 Answer
Nov 22, 2015
Prokaryotes are much simpler in structure than eukaryotes.
Explanation:
They do not have membrane bound organelles, and of course no nucleus. Before cell is divided all these organelles need to be copied so each new cell gets the full set of them.
Copying these organelles including the nucleus means a lot of protein synthesis, DNA replication, and much more.
This takes a lot of time.
Prokaryotes just need to replicate the DNA and divide by binary fission, where the cell i halved in size. Then each cell grows on its own. So there is no need to prepare all the components of the new cell before division, most of it happen after that.
