Q."Telophase is the reverse of prophase". Justify.

Telophase and Nuclear Reformation

Imagine a long, messy phone cord that you've stretched taut across a room. Now picture someone cutting that cord exactly in the middle, so you have two separate, identical halves. For a moment, each half is still stretched out and tense. But the moment you let go, each half snaps back into a loose, tangled coil. That's the core idea of telophase.

The cell has just finished the dramatic separation of its chromosomes during anaphase. Two identical sets of chromosomes now sit at opposite ends of the cell, each pulled tight toward its respective pole. The cell's job is no longer to move things around — it's to settle down and rebuild a normal, working nucleus around each set. This is telophase: the cleanup and reconstruction phase.

The Three Key Events

1. Chromosome Decondensation

During prophase and metaphase, chromosomes are tightly coiled and condensed so they can be moved without breaking. Now that they've arrived at their destinations, that tight packing is unnecessary. The chromosomes begin to unwind and uncoil, becoming long, thin, thread-like structures again — chromatin. This is why, under a microscope, the distinct, visible chromosomes start to fade and become a diffuse tangle. The cell is essentially putting its genetic instructions back into a usable, readable form.

2. Reformation of the Nuclear Envelope

During prophase, the nuclear envelope broke down into small membrane vesicles so the spindle fibres could reach the chromosomes. Now, those vesicles reassemble around each chromosome set. They fuse together, piece by piece, to form a continuous double membrane — a brand new nuclear envelope — around each daughter nucleus. This physically separates the DNA from the cytoplasm, re-establishing the nucleus as a distinct compartment.

3. Reappearance of the Nucleolus

The nucleolus is a dense region inside the nucleus where ribosomal RNA is made. It disappears during prophase when the nuclear envelope breaks down. In telophase, as the chromosomes decondense, the specific chromosomal regions that contain the ribosomal RNA genes (the nucleolar organizer regions) become active again. These regions cluster together, and the nucleolus reforms, becoming visible once more inside each new nucleus. …