Fruit Flies : A Genetic Analysis Of Inheritance Essay

He chose to study in detail the common garden pea, Pisum, which he grew in the monastery garden. During 1856 and 1863 Mendel tested his pea plants reaching a number of maybe 28,000 pea plants, carefully examining seven pairs of seeds for comparison, such as shape of seed, color of seed, tall stemmed and short stemmed and tall plants and short plants looking and the differences in the same plant. Johann Mendel worked on this for many years, carefully wrapping each individual plant to prevent accidental pollination by insects. He collected the seeds produced by the plants and studied these seeds observing that some plants. Johann Mendel discovered that by putting together tall and short parent plants he got hybrid result that resembled the tall parent rather than being a medium height blend. He explained his concept of heredity units, now called genes. These often referred to as dominant or recessive characteristics. He then figured out the pattern of inheritance of various and came up two generalizations that became known as the laws of heredity. Johann Mendel's observations led him to coin two terms, which are still used in present-day genetics: dominant and

At the university of chicago genetically modified animals containing the recovered genes from their ancestors are being made. The genes of fruit flies are being altered to contain an alcohol dehydrogenase gene which existed in them 4 million years ago. The goal of the experiment is to locate the genes that influence adaptations in animals, according a graduate student working on the project. Since the species of fruit fly used in the experiment, D. melanogaster are better at tolerating and breaking down alcohol, which researchers believe is because of the Adh gene they separated the ancient gene and gave it to other species. In the results the newer Adh gene and older one had little differences and both groups of flies were able to break down and survive in alcohol at the same level.

Mendel was a scientist immersed in a numerous amount of fields, but it was with his work with pea plants that really made him famous. He described genes as factors that are not inherited continuously and each factor has two different forms. For example, the flower color on the plants could either be purple or white. The forms that Mendel is discussing are now called alleles. Mendel’s discoveries led to the Law of Dominance, Law of Segregation and Law of Independent Assortment. The Law of Dominance discusses how one allele will suppress the allele from the other parent. The trait

Fruit Flies were observed throughout most of the experiment. Observing the sex differences between male and female under the microscope help identify the phenotypes as well. For example, it was possible to see if the fruit flies were female or male wildtype, vestigial, white-eye and white eye vestigial. The observations to distinguish female or male fruit flies is that males fruit flies have sex combs on front of their legs. Another observation that can be distinguish between male and female fruit flies is that males have a darker ventral posterior section in the abdomen. Female fruit flies is just plain nothing showing. And lastly, another observation that is used to distinguished between male and females fruit flies is the size. It is considered

While studying pea plants, Mendel realized that basic underlying principles of heredity found in pea plants could also apply to more complicated life forms like humans and animals and essentially discovered genetics. By selectively breeding and observing the seven factors of pea plants over multiple generations, Mendel found that invisible ‘’factors’’ now known as genes provide ‘’visible and nonvisible traits in predictable and observable ways’’ (Landry). Mendel found that, when breeding a purebred white flowered pea plant with a purebred pea plant with purple colored flowers, the offspring had purple colored flowers rather than a mix of the two. He also discovered that alternative forms of these genes existed, these are later called alleles. Mendel created three scientific laws from his findings. Mendel’s Law of Segregation states that the alleles of a gene separate from each other during a process called gamete formation. Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment states that genes of different traits can separate independently during this process. Mendel explains that alleles can be dominant or recessive and that an organism with at least one dominant allele will show the dominant trait. This is explained in his Law of Dominance. A common theory at the time was that traits were present in all generations but Mendel postulated that traits can be recessive or dominant when he observed the phenomena of traits not appearing in one generation but

This experiment is being done to show Mendel’s rule of dominance that says certain alleles are dominant and others are recessive. To show this, we are using tobacco seeds, a monohybrid cross comparing only one trait color.

Gregor Mendel discovered the fundamental laws of inheritance. He chose pea plants as his experimental organism and carried out self-fertilization experiments. Mendel’s laws are the law of segregation and the law of independent assortment. Mendel’s law of segregation says that the two copies of a gene separate from each other during transmission from parent to offspring. When an individual possessed two identical copies of a gene, the individual is said to be homozygous with respect to that gene. Using Mendel’s cross of tall and dwarf pea plants to illustrate how genes are passed from parent to offspring, the letters T and t are used to represent the alleles of the gene that determines plant height. In the P cross, the tall plant is homozygous

Mendel created three laws about inheritance: the law of independent assortment (which claimed that specific traits operate independently of each other), the law of independent segregation (inherited characteristics exist in multiple forms; allele), and the law of dominance (for each characteristic, one factor is dominant and the other is recessive). Darwin concluded that cells of the body increase in number by self-divison while keeping the same traits, and then become various tissues and substance of the body. The gemmules are collected from all parts of the body and converted to sexual element which, and a new being is formed. Galton believes that traits are passed on from grandparents and from parents, so the offspring get a combination of both grandparents and parents.

Drosophila Melanogaster commonly known as a fruit fly, is a model organism, used by scientist / genetics all around the world to study, the genetic component, its genetic mutations, it’s genetic relations between different mutations through learning and understand the principle behind gene transformation, from one generation of flies to the other. The underlaying reason why scientist favor it among other eukaryotes its due its small size, and it’s high rate of reproduction within days. Drosophila Melanogaster was first used as a model organism by Thomas Morgan “ in 1911…who investigated the inheritance pattern of different trait that had been shown to follow the X-linked

Focusing on the F2 generation during this experiment is very important because the recessive trait appears as a predictable ratio. This shows that the F1 generation plant cross fertilized with another F1 generation plant will produce ¾ tall plants and ¼ short plants. In Genetics, a phenotype is an observable characteristic of a trait, and a genotype is the genetic make-up of a trait. Throughout his research he found that unit factors exist in pairs, within a pair of unit factors one of them is dominant and one is recessive. Unit factors are pairs of genes that determine the outcome of the offspring being produced. He also proposed the law of segregation stating that allele pairs segregate during gamete formation, and randomly unite at fertilization. After discovering the law of segregation he was also able to create the law of

When analyzing genetic crosses between organisms we must first come to a complete understanding of two of Mendel’s Laws. Mendel’s first law which is also known as the principle of segregation states that “alleles segregate in the formation of gametes.” (Branco and Pires, 2010) His second law which is the principle of independent assortment, states that “in the formation of gametes, genes that have different traits independently assort from each other. In a monohybrid cross the ideal ratio is 3:1 for a dominant and a recessive phenotype and a test cross

The hypothesis was that all the crosses will follow Mendel’s law of independent assortment (9:3:3:1 ratio) of a dihybrid cross, but none of our results adhered to this inheritance pattern.

The experiment tested Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance using two mutant recessive traits, dumpy wings and sepia eyes. The Laws of Inheritance state that: alleles from an organism will separate during the formation of gametes and genes that are different will assort independently from each other when gametes are formed. According to these laws, Drosophila mutant traits should assort independently and segregate. The parental cross was a true breeding dumpy female and a sepia male and the reciprocal cross with a true breeding sepia female and dumpy male.

Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) are widely used as a model organism in Genetics as Drosophila are relatively easy to use in investigations involving genetic crosses. Drosophila have a short life-cycle, allowing for many generations to occur in a span of time convenient in an undergraduate laboratory. The genes white eyes (w), miniature wings (m) and yellow body (y) are all present on the X chromosome of Drosophila, allowing for the estimation of map distances between these genes. In this investigation, Drosophila with the white eyes and yellow body genes will be crossed in order to estimate the map distances between these genes, to establish whether or not these genes are linked, and to examine the effect of X chromosome

He reasoned that there were certain rules by which these characteristics were inherited. He guessed that each plant must possess some sort of unit that specified its characteristics. In fact, each must have two units, one from each parent plant. If the plant inherited two different units, then one would override the other. This was called the dominant unit, and the one that was overridden was called the recessive unit. Mendel's theories were not discovered till 1900, and it began the science called genetics , the study of a physical inheritance. From this name, Mendel's units were changed into genes.