Introduction: Genetics is the study of how genes and heredity combine to create traits in living organisms. Gregor Mendel disproved the theory that heredity comes only from parents. He discovered that there were dominant and recessive genes and his “Law of Dominance” has been used to selectively breed plants and animals for particular attributes. It has also been successfully adopted to identify the risk of passing down genetic diseases. Francis Galton took Mendel’s discoveries further by studying multifactoral inheritance and discovering ‘blending traits’, also known as continuous variation. With these traits, involvement of a wide range of genetic and environmental factors results in the creation of wide-ranging genotypes.
Inheritance:
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For a recessive phenotype, the individual must have two copies, one from each parent, for example, blue eyes. A holder of one dominant and one recessive allele for a gene will have the dominant phenotype. They are generally considered “carriers” of the recessive allele: the recessive allele is there, but the recessive phenotype is not.
Genetic crosses: Genetic crosses show how characteristics are inherited through the generations. In a monohybrid cross each parent contributes two alleles, producing four possible combinations for the one trait. A dihybrid cross involves two alleles per trait for two traits, for a total of four alleles. Each allele of a particular trait has an equal chance of being in a gamete with each of the alleles of the other trait.
Gene Mutations: A gene mutation is a permanent change in the DNA sequence that makes up a gene. Mutations can vary in size from a single DNA building block (Fig 2) to a large section of a chromosome. Gene mutations occur in two ways, either they can be inherited from a parent or attained during a person’s lifetime. Mutations that are passed from parent to child are called hereditary mutations. This type of mutation is present throughout a person’s life in practically every cell in the body. Mutations that take place only in an egg can cause genetic disorders when a family has no history of the ailment. Environmental factors such as radiation (Fig 8) can cause acquired mutations in the DNA
Alleles are a version of a gene, things like hair color, eye color, hitchhiker's thumb, and various other things are controlled by alleles. Alleles are either dominant or recessive, dominant alleles are the one that will show up even if only one parent has it and recessive alleles show up only if the dominant allele isn’t present. Most things are controlled by several different genes but some are controlled only by one.
Gregor Mendel has played a huge role contributing to the field of genetics. Mendel is one of the first people who discovered genetics which is so famous in the modern world. After Gregor published his discoveries from the peas experiment and explained the basic laws of genetic inheritance, but he was ignored. Then he was later recognized when it was rediscovered and confirmed by other scientists in the field of science.
There F-1 is a generation of hybrids, and they mate to create the F-2 generation. The purpose of this to look at the phenotype ratio patterns between the generations, and the results of the phenotypes are used to determine the inheritance pattern. A reciprocal cross will also be conducted with a Lightning (lt lt) and Gold (AU AU) purebred mother and an Acid (AC AC) and Red (r r) purebred father in order to rule out sexual linkage. The reciprocal cross means that the genders are switched from the original two parents. If the ratios of the original F-1 and F-2 are the same as the reciprocal, then the traits are not sexually linked, but if the ratios are different, then sexual linkage is most likely
A mutation is the act or process of being altered or changed. Mutations are very dangerous to the human body. The good thing is that not all mutations can be inherited. In some cases where a mutation occurs in sperm cells, a mutation can be passed on which often most likely leads to genetic variation. A mutation that is possible to receive is called a germ line mutation.
Mutation is the changing of the structure of a gene, resulting in a different form which may be spread to following generations, caused by the adjustment of single base units in DNA. The different types of mutations contend of missense, nonsense, substitution, frameshift, deletion,
A mutation is when a change in the DNA sequence occurs. Some mutations cause diseases, variations, or no affect at all.
Dominant and recessive inheritance are useful concepts when it comes to predicting the probability of an individual inheriting certain phenotypes, especially genetic disorders. But the terms can be confusing when it comes to understanding how a gene specifies a trait. This confusion comes about in part because people observed dominant and recessive inheritance patterns before anyone knew anything about DNA and genes, or how genes code for proteins that specify traits.
Unit III: Genetics (15 Lectures) 3.1: Gene and gene concepts, definition of gene and gene expression 3.2: Mendelian inheritance: i) Monohybrid and dihybrid cross, ii) Concept of dominance, iii) Exception to Mendelian inheritance: Incomplete dominance, co- dominance, interaction of genes: (Epistasis:
As we have recently learned it was found that in most of nature’s occurrences, offspring inherits either trait from their parent in sexual reproduction. For example, when he cross breeded a white pea plant and a purple pea plant, the offspring had been either white or purple. However, there are exceptions to these findings. These five exceptions are known as Codominance, Incomplete Dominance, one affecting many traits, many genes affecting one trait, and the environmental surroundings. Codominance is the phenomenon in which two different dominant traits balance eachother out and in return, the offspring is a mix between both phenotypes which are equally shown. For example, with a genotype of XY for fur color. If X had represented white fur, and Y represented brown fur, then the offspring would
Mutations can occur due to different factors. Germ-line mutations are inherited from your parents, while other mutations can happen in your lifetime.“When a gene's instructions for making protein changes it can cause the protein to malfunction or miss out entirely.” Little changes can affect an individual's DNA sequence and even chromosomes. Although genetic mutations may be unavoidable
A mutation can simply be put as abrupt change in the genotype of an organism that is not the result of recombination. A gene mutation is a permanent change in the DNA sequence that makes up a gene. Mutations range in size from a single DNA building block (DNA base) to a large segment of a chromosome. Gene mutations occur in two ways: they can be inherited from a parent or acquired during a person's lifetime. Mutations that are passed from parent to child are called hereditary mutations or germ line mutations (because they are present in the egg and sperm cells, which are also called germ cells). This type of mutation is present throughout a person's life in virtually every cell in the body. Mutations that occur only in an egg or sperm
The genetic material that determines the trait is known as the genotype, which at times it is said to be homozygous (a person containing two recessive/two dominant alleles coming from both parents) or heterozygous (a person having one recessive/one dominant allele from both parents). It is typically common for a child to have brown eyes when one parent has a recessive allele and the other a dominant allele allowing it to override the other. However, if both parents have brown eyes, but contribute the recessive allele the child will have blue eyes. This is not always the case as genetic inheritance is not always simple as we see some people having eyes that are green, one brown, and one blue (CCCOE, 2016).
This unit will focus on DNA, gene expression, and basic patterns of heredity. The main objective of this unit is to provide opportunities for students to learn general concepts that are associated with genetics and to create a better understanding of inheritance and its’ relationship to genetic diseases. According to standards set by the Next Generation Science Standards which are endorsed by the National Science Teachers Association, students should be able to analyze and interpret data to provide evidence that plants and animals have traits inherited from parents and that variation of these traits exists in a group of similar organisms. Additionally, students should be able to ask questions to clarify the role of DNA and chromosomes have in coding the instructions for characteristic traits passed from parents to offspring (NGSS, 2016). Students should have the opportunity to learn how genetics affects past generations as well as learn how genetics and inheritance influences our past, present, and future. Understanding even the simplest genetic cross requires combining inferences about two complex processes: how genetic traits are inherited through meiosis and mating, and how these traits interact to produce the external differences seen in parents and offspring. Students should also have opportunities to learn the basic concepts of genetics that provide an increased understanding of heredity, DNA, and specifically genetic diseases (MDE, 2010). The ultimate
Gregor Mendel is known as the Father of Modern Genetics, (Gregor Mendel - New World Encyclopedia:, n.d.). Gregor was pretty popular in the world of science, unfortunately while he was alive he was not recognized for any of his works with research. He was born in Austria in 1822 and his parents were agriculturalists. As a young child his family lived and owned a farm, Mendel became very intrigued with plants, shrubbery, and produce. As he grew older he absolutely loved to learn and was spiritual, he soon moved away from home. Over the course of his lifetime he became a professor, minister, and researcher. While Gregor was a monk, he was able to nurture and take care of the garden at the monastery. He was responsible for the Laws governing Inheritance of Traits. Mendel planted and tested some 28,000 pea plants, he discovered that the plants ' progeny reserved traits of the parents. Mendel piloted his experiment using empirical probability from 1856 to 1863.
Genetic traits which are derived from the rules of inheritance proposed by Gregor Mendel are referred to as Mendelian. After a series of experiments in his garden with pea plants he came to discover the basic principles of heredity which have now formed the foundation to genetics; he noted certain traits appeared within offspring in predictable patterns. These principles include the law of segregation which states offspring receives an allele coding for the same trait from both parents and the law of Independent assortment, declaring alleles passed on from parents are independent thus the inheritance of one gene does not influence the inheritance of another gene.(Genetics-generation, 2017). So if an allele coding for blue eyes is inherited this does not influence the probability of receiving an allele coding for blonde hair.