Abuhassan, Zheniena Group no.

1
Baguio, Nathalie Mae December 11, 2019
Barraquias, Fatima Shiera
Kaddu, Nadra
Moncerina, Mary Abigail

GENETICS: Constructing Pedigrees

INTRODUCTION

The students will examine some human traits that are fairly simple and that follow the Mendelian
pattern of inheritance. Most of the traits are much more complex, including many genes or
interactions among genes. For example, the color of the hair is determined by at least four genes,
each one coding for the production of melanin, a brown pigment. Because the effect of these
genes is cumulative, the color of the hair can range from blond (little melanin) to very dark
brown (much melanin). Human traits are most interesting to each individual. The traits in this
activity exhibit Mendelian inheritance. For each, the students were asked to construct a pedigree
of at least three generations of the family or our own family.

Genetics is a field of biology that studies how traits are passed from parents to their offspring.
The passing of traits from parents to offspring is known as heredity; therefore, genetics is the
study of heredity. Genetics is about family histories. All individuals inherit the genetic
information specifying their structure and function from their parents.

On the other hand, pedigrees can be valuable when taking a broader view of gene expression,
phenotypic variability, and patterns of transmission. Pedigrees can yield insights that single
mating examples fail to provide. That is especially true for human genetics, where experimental
matings typical of model organism studies cannot be performed. Pedigrees are a simple way to
summarize a lot of information about genetic relationships.

Objectives:
1. Construct pedigrees of simple Mendelian traits.
2. Identify the genotypes of all individuals in the pedigree.

Procedure:
Construct a pedigree of at least three generations of a family showing each of the
following traits.
A. Hair Type – curly is dominant over straight hair.
B. Ability to roll tongue – tongue roller is dominant over non tongue roller.
o Pedigree of Inheritance of Hair type

o Pedigree of Inheritance of ability to roll tongues

Questions:
1. Discuss the Laws of Inheritance and relate to this activity done.
Through Gregor Johann Mendel’s experiment of pea plant, he was able to discover the
fundamental laws of inheritance which explains the contrasting characteristics and the
resultant offspring of pollination in plants. Mendel proposed three laws: Law of Dominance,
The Law of Segregation, and the law of independent assortment. The Law of Dominance
depict in a heterozygous condition, the allele whose characters are expressed over the other
allele is called the dominant allele in which the characters of this dominant allele are called
dominant characters. In F1 generation, dominant characters are termed when the characters
appear. While on the other hand, recessive characters appear in the F2 generation. The law of
segregation is express when two traits come together in one hybrid pair, two characters are
independent of each other and does not combine with each other. During meiosis of the
chromosome, each gamete receives one of the two alleles. The law of independent
assortment highlights that there are different genes for separate traits and characters, and they
 impact and sort themselves independently of the other genes. This indicates that at the time of
gamete formation, the two genes segregate on its own as well as of the other traits. The law
of inheritance is related to the activity done since it discusses the possible traits and
characteristics from the parents of the offspring from one generation to the other. The
interaction of genes plays great role in this activity since it indicates the result of inheritance,
whether this will result to recessive or dominant character depending on the genes of its
generation.
2. Compare and contrast the following terms:
Genotype vs. Phenotype
The phenotype is the physical appearance of an organism, while the Genotype is
the genetic composition of an organism. Phenotype is observable and are the
expression of the genes of an individual. So even the organism with the same
species may differ, with a minute difference in their genotype. This is the main
difference between the two. A genotype is partly inherited from an individual to
the offspring as one of the two alleles, during the reproduction process. The
phenotype is the expression of the genetic trait of the parent, but they are not
inherited. Genotype consist of the hereditary characters of the organisms, which
may or may not get expressed in the next generation. The same genotype
produces the same phenotype in a particular environment, but in the case of
phenotype, characters are not inherited. Thus, we can say that the same
phenotypes may or may not belong to the same genotype.

Homozygous vs. Heterozygous

The comparison of homozygous and heterozygous is that they are terms used to
describe alleles that are found on a particular gene. While the difference of this
two is that homozygous define that both replication of the allele, such as a two
highest alleles (AA) or two recessive alleles (aa) are homozygous while if it is one
highest allele and recessive allele (Aa) is heterozygous. In other words,
homozygous trait is made up of two of the same alleles while heterozygous trait is
made of two different alleles. When the two alleles are the same, they are called
homozygous. When both the alleles are different, they are called as heterozygous.

CONCLUSION
Analysis of pedigrees (family trees) can be used to determine the pattern of inheritance in
organisms where designed crosses are not practical: organisms with long generation times and/or
with few offspring per generation. Pedigree analysis has been utilized to decide the design of
inheritance of numerous human characteristics, conditions, and disorders. Because of the little
sample sizes in families, speculations approximately design of inheritance are not as strong as
those gotten from controlled, designed crosses. Be that as it may, robustness and certainty in
theories are expanded when researchers assess several independent families of the same trait. So
in conclusion, the family tree or pedigree is constructed using a standardized set of symbols and
will include information about the disease status of each individual. If only a single individual is
affected within the family, then the pedigree cannot itself provide proof for a particular mode of
inheritance and cannot distinguish inherited from non-inherited conditions. When more than one
individual is affected then the pattern may provide important clues or even proof of the mode of
inheritance.