A student writes that fertilisation is the joining of the nuclei of two particular cells. Which pair of cells must she be referring to?
Question 1 Report
A student writes that fertilisation is the joining of the nuclei of two particular cells. Which pair of cells must she be referring to?
Answer Details
Fertilisation is defined as the fusion of the nuclei of a male gamete (sperm) and a female gamete (egg cell). It must involve one sperm and one egg, because each gamete carries one set of chromosomes and their fusion restores the full set in the zygote. Two sperm or two egg cells would not be fertilisation, and a uterus-lining cell is a normal body cell, not a gamete, so joining a sperm to it does not fit the definition. Always state fertilisation as the fusion of a sperm nucleus and an egg nucleus.
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