While conducting the Mitotic Index Lab it was difficult to identify what stage the cells were in because the magnification was not high enough. However, many nuclei were visible indicating that the cell were in interphase or early prophase. The majority of cells were in interphase, as seen in the graph and charts above, while the rest were in other phases. Conclusion and Evaluation: Faraz Sheikh SBI3U1-01 MS. Ho As expected, the results from the Mitotic Index Lab show that most cells were in interphase meanwhile there were not many cells in the other four phases.
This goes to show that this stage is relatively long while the other ones are not as long since there were not as many cells in those stages as shown in the graph and tables. Although a Mitotic Index can be used for educational purposes it can also be used in cancer tumor diagnosis. For example, a person who does not have cancer will not have as many cells undergoing mitosis compared to the amount of cells that are in interphase. However if a person with cancer is examined, results will show that there are more cells that are going through mitosis compared to the cells that are in interphase.
This is because cancer cells grow repeatedly and more frequently than normal cells. This lab has two limitations. One limitation is that only cells that are stained will be visible and the one that are not stained will not be looked at because it will be hard to determine what stage the cell is in. The second limitation is that some cells can be dead or dying meaning that it is harder to verify how many cells are going through a specific stage in the cell cycle. Modifications that can help get more accurate results include looking at a more than one slide and observing more cells.