Chapter 10.

2
Mendelian Genetics
NWRC Bio 30
Gregor Mendel
• An Austrian Monk
who did
groundbreaking work
into the theories of
heredity. According to
the textbook his work
was published in
1866.
 Mendel
• Mendel discovered
some basic laws
which governed the
passage of a trait
from one member of a
species to another
member of the same
species.
• Demo Mendel
 Mendel
• Why Mendel studied pea plants
• This site gives us the background on how
plants self-fertilize and how they can be
cross-fertilized as well
 vocabulary terms
• GENOTYPE = the genes present in the
DNA of an organism. We use a pair of
letters (ex: Tt or YY or ss, etc.) to
represent genotypes for one particular
trait. There are always two letters in
the genotype because (as a result of
sexual reproduction) one code for the
trait comes from mom & the other
comes from dad, so every offspring
gets two codes (two letters).
 Mendel
• Suppose one of your parents had the genotype
AABB then you would have inherited AB from
this parent. Suppose also that your other parent
had the genotype aabb then you would have
inherited ab from this parent. The combinations
of AB and ab are parental types. Your genotype
is AaBb and some of your children will inherit
these parental types either AB or ab from you.
However, it is also possible for some of your
children to inherit new combinations called "re-
combinants from you. These are Ab and aB.
What does that mean in real terms?
• Lets say A is a tallness allele so a would be
shortness
• B is brown eyes and b is blue eyed
• one of your parents had the genotype AABB so
that parent (we’ll call him dad) is TALL and
Brown eyed
• your other parent (called Mom) had the
genotype aabb (Short and blue eyed)
• Your genotype would be AaBb
• What would you look like???
What does that mean in real terms?
• Your genotype would be AaBb
• So you would have the dominant trait for
tallness and the dominant trait for brown
eyes.
 vocabulary terms
• When we have two capital or two lowercase
letters in the GENOTYPE (ex: TT or tt) it's
called HOMOZYGOUS ("homo" means "the
same"). Sometimes the term "PURE" is used
instead of homozygous.
• When the GENOTYPE is made up of one
capital letter & one lowercase letter (ex: Tt)
it's called HETEROZYGOUS ("hetero" means
"other"). A heterozygous genotype can also
be referred to as HYBRID.
 vocabulary terms
• PHENOTYPE = how the trait physically
shows-up in the organism. The simplest way
to determine an organism's phenotype is to
just look at it. Examples of phenotypes: blue
eyes, brown fur, striped fruit, yellow flowers.
• ALLELES =
• Alleles are alternative forms of the same
gene. Alleles for a trait are located at
corresponding positions on homologous
chromosomes.
 vocabulary terms
• PHENOTYPE = how the trait physically
shows-up in the organism. The simplest way
to determine an organism's phenotype is to
just look at it. Examples of phenotypes: blue
eyes, brown fur, striped fruit, yellow flowers.
• ALLELES =
• Alleles are alternative forms of the same
gene. Alleles for a trait are located at
corresponding positions on homologous
chromosomes.
 Mendel’s Pea Plants
• Monks have a lot of free time and
Mendel spent his time crossing pea
plants. As he did this over & over &
over & over & over again, he noticed
some patterns to the inheritance of
traits from one set of pea plants to the
next. By carefully analyzing his pea
plant numbers he formed his
hypotheses regarding genetics.
The original cross for the tall &
short pea plants was:

parents F1
Offspring

Genotype TT X tt Tt -100%

Phenotype Tall x Short Tall – 100%

 Mendel’s Pea Plants
• While Mendel was crossing
(reproducing) his pea plants
(over & over & over again),
he noticed something
interesting. When he
crossed pure tall plants with
pure short plants, all the
new pea plants (referred to
as the F1 generation) were
tall. Similarly, crossing pure
yellow seeded pea plants
and pure green seeded pea
plants produced an F1
generation of all yellow
seeded pea plants. The
same was true for other pea
traits:
 Mendel’s Pea Plants
• So, what he noticed
was that when the
parent plants had
contrasting forms of a
trait (tall vs short, green
vs yellow, etc.) the
phenotypes of the
offspring resembled
only one of the parent
plants with respect to
that trait.
 Mendel’s Big Surprise!
!!!! • Then Mendel takes two
of the "F1" generation
(which are tall) &
crosses them. I would
think that he is figuring
that he's going get all
tall again (since tall is
dominant). But for
some reason he gets
some short plants from
this cross! His new
batch of pea plants (the
"F2" generation) is
about 3/4 tall & 1/4
short.
The F2 Generation
 Mendel

My LAW of
Segregation says that
of a pair of
characteristics only one
can be represented in
a gamete. What I mean
was that for any pair of
characteristics there is
only one gene in a
gamete even though
there are two genes in
ordinary cells.
 Mendel
What If your eyes are
does that blue, green or grey
you have two

mean? alleles for blue eyes

(bb) You got one
from your mom and
one from your dad
– everyone comes
from 2 gametes
(egg and sperm) so
you may get 2
alleles but only one
trait is expressed.
Monohybrid Cross
• cross involved
organisms that
differed for a single
character
• examples in pea
• tall x short,
• purple x white,
• round x wrinkled
Dihybrid Cross
• A dihybrid cross is a
cross between two F1
offspring of two
individuals that differ
in two traits examples
in pea
• tall x short, and
• purple x white,
Example of another dihybrid cross
• SsYy x SsYy Note both maternal and
paternal alleles are heterozygous
• The dihybrid cross was invented by
Mendel to discover the independent
assortment of alleles during gamete
formation.
 Mendel

My next LAW is
the law of
"Independent
Assortment". This
says that for two
characteristics the
genes are inherited
independently.
 Mendel

My third LAW –
the Law of
segregation During
the formation of gametes
(eggs or sperm), the two
alleles responsible for a trait
separate from each other.
Alleles for a trait are then
"recombined" at fertilization,
producing the genotype for
the traits of the offspring.
 Mendel!
• Dominant Genes review
 Review Questions
• 1. Which cross would best illustrate Mendel's
Law of Segregation?
• A. TT x tt
B. Hh x hh
C. Bb x Bb
• D. rr x rr
• The right answer is C because - both parent
show dominant trait, but some recessive
offspring will be produced (each parent
carries a "b")
 Review Questions
• 2. In the cross Yy x Yy, what percent of
offspring would have the same phenotype as
the parents?
• A. 25%
B. 50%
C. 75%
D. 100%
• C is right - in the completed p-square, 3 of 4
boxes will have at least 1 "Y", producing the
dominant phenotype (same as parents)
 Review Questions
• In a certain plant, purple flowers are dominant to red
flowers. If the cross of two purple-flowered plants
produces some some purple-flowered and some red-
flowered plants, what is the genotype of the parent
plants?
• A. PP x Pp
B. Pp x Pp
• C. pp x PP
• D. pp x pp
• answer B is right - for any offspring to be recessive,
each parent MUST have at least one "p"
 Chapter Questions
1.
 Chapter Questions

The Law of Segregation

Goes like so: During the formation of gametes
(eggs or sperm), the two alleles responsible
for a trait separate from each other.
Alleles for a trait are then "recombined" at
fertilization, producing the genotype for the traits of the offspring.
 2 Continued
• The Law of Independent Assortment
Alleles for different traits are distributed
to sex cells (& offspring) independently of
one another. Mendel noticed during all his
work that the height of the plant and the
shape of the seeds and the color of the
pods had no impact on one another. In
other words, being tall didn't
automatically mean the plants had to have
green pods, nor did green pods have to
be filled only with wrinkled seeds, the
different traits seem to be inherited
INDEPENDENTLY.
 3.
R r

r Rr rr

r Rr rr