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The Discovery of Dominant and Recessive Genes by Gregor Mendel

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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: …show more content…

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

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