Cell proliferation refers to the physiological process of cell division that happens in nearly all tissues, creating an increase in the number of cells. Mitosis is the primary way for eukaryotes to divide cells, in order to increase the number of somatic cells. Cell proliferation is similar to mitosis in that it causes a cell to grow and divide to produce 2 daughter cells. However, they are not considered to be the same because mitosis only occurs in eukaryotes, whereas cell proliferation is the physiological process of cell division that also occurs in prokaryotic cells.