A heart cell was taken from a rat and placed in Flask A, which contained a nutrient-rich culture medium. A kidney cell was taken from the same rat and placed in Flask B, which contained the same nutrient-rich culture medium. Twenty-four hours later both flasks were dense with cells, indicating cellular division had occurred. The flasks were analyzed to determine what types of cells were present. Which of the following best explains why all the cells in Flask A were heart cells and all the cells in Flask B were kidney cells? Information dictating cell type is passed from a parent cell to offspring during mitosis.
No crossing-over or mutations occurred during cell division.
The parent cell secreted enzymatic signals that stimulated the offspring to develop into the same cell type.
The parent cells must have been homozygous for genes encoding cell type