In this video, we're going to introduce animal cell cytokinesis. And so in animal cells, cytokinesis is characterized by the formation of what's known as a cleavage furrow. This cleavage furrow is really just a small indentation of actin filaments mainly and some myosin filaments as well at the center of a dividing cell. This cleavage furrow ultimately results in the pinching of the cytoplasm and the separation of the two cells. If we take a look at our image down below on the left-hand side, notice we're showing you a cell right after mitosis, and recall that mitosis technically ends with a single cell that has two nuclei.
Notice that we still have a single cell here; this is a cell that is still a single cell because the cytoplasm is still connected here, and notice that there are two nuclei here. What you'll notice is that mitosis technically does not end with two cells and so mitosis needs to be followed up by the process of cytokinesis. Cytokinesis is what's going to separate the cytoplasm, essentially separating this single cell to form two cells. During animal cell cytokinesis, a structure, referred to as the cleavage furrow, is going to form. The cleavage furrow is just this indentation that you can see forms from the result of these contractile actin microfilaments and myosin filaments that form in the middle, or in the center of the dividing cell. Ultimately, this cleavage furrow is going to continue to pinch off the cytoplasm until the two, the cytoplasm has been divided and the two cells have their own cytoplasm and their own nucleus.
These here would represent the daughter cells that result. Telephase, which is the final phase of mitosis and cytokinesis, are going to occur simultaneously, which is why mitosis is so highly linked to creating two daughter cells. But technically, it's the process of mitosis and cytokinesis that leads to the two daughter cells. This here concludes our introduction to animal cell cytokinesis and how it's characterized by the formation of the cleavage furrow. This is going to be different when we look at plant cell cytokinesis in our next video. So, I'll see you all there.