So now that we've introduced the 3 main types of cell division, binary fission, mitosis, and meiosis, in this video we're going to talk about the importance of cell division. Cell division is an important process for reproduction, making more life, fetal development, growth, and allowing a single cell zygote to grow into a baby and allowing the baby to grow into a fully mature adult through the process of cell division. Moreover, cell division is crucial for tissue repair. If you get a cut, that tissue dies, and the dead tissue needs to be replaced; those replacement cells come from the process of cell division.
Here on the left-hand side, we're showing you an image of asexual reproduction, illustrating how a single cell can divide to create 2 cells. You can see the cell here is in the process of dividing. Some cells rely on cell division for reproduction purposes since many organisms are single-celled, and the only way that they can reproduce is through cell division. Also, fetus development critically relies on cell division, allowing a single-celled zygote to grow into a fetus and develop into a baby, and then grow into a toddler and onward until a fully mature adult is formed. This demonstrates the significant role cell division plays in fetal development.
In this image, it shows a single-celled zygote and how it can divide to form 2 cells, and then each of those can divide to form 4 cells, and so on until there are trillions of cells allowing for the fetus to develop. Once again, cell division is crucial for tissue repair and renewal, demonstrating some cells dividing to help repair a specific tissue. The main takeaway here is that cell division is immensely important.
But again, when a single cell divides to create 2 cells, each of those cells needs to have a copy of the DNA. This means that before a cell can divide, it must first replicate, duplicate, or make an extra copy of the DNA so that each of the daughter cells resulting can have their own copy of the DNA. The organization of the DNA is a very important component to understanding cell division and how it functions. Moving forward in our course, we're going to start to talk about the organization of DNA inside of the cell. So, I'll see you all in our next video.