Mendelian genetics

By Snigdha Kundu @ dna2life.com

Mendelian inheritance was derived by Gregor Johann Mendel .He was an austrian monk and a son of farmer who worked with pure lines of pea for eight years and hence formulated three laws of inheritence.

Prior to Mendelian theory ,hereditary was considered as blending of different parental characteristics.
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What and why did Mendel choose for his experiments?

Mendel took pea (Pisum sativum) as his experimental topic. The reason behind his choice: Can be grown in small area Produces lot of offspring Self pollination gives pure breed Artificially cross pollination can be done.

He took seven traits of pea to conduct the experiment:

Pea shape Pea pod shape Pea colour Pea pod colour Plant height Pea albumin colour Leaf position

: smooth/wrinkle : inflated/constricted : grey/white : green/yellow : tall/short :yellow/green : axial/terminal

Terminologies :
1.Gene It can be referred as molecular
2. 3. 4. 5. unit of heredity of a living organism that is a section of DNA ,which encodes protein.

2. Allele It means alike; i.e two same gene the same position on homologous strand and carrying the same trait.

3. locus A fixed position on the strand of DNA where a gene or allele located.

Character A biological property of an organism that can be seen or

measured.

Homozygous It is the condition where

identical alleles are present at same locus.

Heterozygous It is the condition where

different alleles are present at a particular locus.

Hemizygous It is the condition where one allele is present in

diploid cell. Such condition leads to sex-linked diseases.

Diploid (2n) such a type of cell have two homologous copy of chromosome,one from father and other from mother Haploid(n) it is the number of chromosome in a gamete of individual. Genotype this is the genetic nature of an individual. Phenotype this is the outward nature of an individual.

Dominant Allele of a gene whose trait becomes prominent by suppressing

the others trait

Recessive The suppressed allele. Gamete It is the sex cell that contains half of the genetic information for the
expression of the trait.

Zygote It is the cell formed after the fusion of two gametic cell/sex cell.

From www.mymcat.com

Monohybrid cross
Crossing of two pea plant with different stem size: tall(T) and dwarf(t) For homozygous tall plant = TT For homozygous dwarf plant = tt For P1 parent generation : P1: TT tt

gamete: Offsprings:

T Tt

Hence, genotype for all 4 offspring : Tt Phenotype for all 4 offspring : tall Offsprings are all hybrid showing tall as dominant trait and are called F1 or first filial generation.

Mendel then crossed two of his offspring from F1 generation and named as F1 cross.

Tt x
F1 cross : T t T

Tt
t genotype Phenotype Genotype ratio phenotype ratio : : : : TT : Tt : tt tall : dwarf 1:2:1 3:1

The offspring are called F2 generation. Mendel then crossed between pure (TT) and hybrid (Tt) and named it F2 cross and F2 generation. T T T genotype : TT : Tt TT TT Phenotype : tall Tt Tt t genotype ratio : 1:1 Phenotype ratio : all tall Hence, F2 generation produced all tall. Next Mendel performed dihybrid cross.

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Dihybrid cross
For P1,mendel choose; traits : seed shape and color Allele : round(R) yellow(Y) wrinkled(r) green(y) P1 cross : RRYY X rryy F1 generation : For F2 generation : RY RY RRYY ry RrYy RrYy ry RrYy rryy RrYy X RrYy Ry RRYy Rryy rY RrYY

Ry rY

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Result :

GENOTYPE RRYY RRYy RrYY

GENOTYPE RATIO PHENOTYPE 1 2 2

PHENOTYPE RATIO

RrYy
RRyy Rryy

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1 2 Round yellow seed

rrYY
rrYy rryy

1
2 1

Round green seed

Wrinkled yellow seed

From his results, he concluded : law of dominance Law of independent assortment Law of segregation

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Law of dominance :
It states that when different alleles for a particular triat are inherited (heterozygous), the trait of only one (the dominant one) will be expressed. The recessive trait's phenotype only appears in true-breeding (homozygous) individuals

Law of independent assortment :

It states that each genetic trait is produced by a pair of alleles which separate (segregate) during reproduction.

Law of seggregation :
It states that each factor (gene) is distributed (assorted) randomly and independently of one another in the formation of gametes.

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Beyond mendel's law:

Mendel was lucky, since the characters he took were dominant. Hence phenotypes were very clear. But sometimes phenotypes were not not very clear ,which are later called as exceptions of Mendel's law. These are :

Incomplete dominance example : different colour of snapdragon flowers.

Co-dominance example : human blood group

Multiple alleles example : human blood group A,B, AB, O Polygenic trait example : different height ,hair, and eye color in human

Linked gene
Sex linked traits example : haemophilia

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!! THE END !!

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