chapter 4 Flashcards
What is Mendelian genetics?
- Gregor Mendel is now honoured as the founder of genetics
- famous for his pea plant experiment
what are phenotypes?
- the physical manifestation of a genetic trait
what are genotypes?
- describes the combination of genes responsible for that phenotype
the ratio between a genotype and phenotype is?
- not one to one.
- certain phenotype can correspond to multiple genotypes
what is a gene?
- defined as a sequence of DNA that codes for a given trait
what is an allele?
- refers to variations of that gene
copies of the same chromosome are reffered to as?
- homologues, because they contain the same set of genes, even if they have different alleles
what is a locus?
- each gene occurs at a specific place on a chromosome known as the locus
What is a dominant allele?
- only one copy is necessary for its associated phenotype to be expressed (Capital letters)
what are gain of function mutations?
- the mutated protein can do something the original protein couldn’t
- tends to be dominant
what are recessive alleles?
- both alleles must be recessive for the phenotype in question to be expressed
what are loss of function mutations?
- the mutated protein can no longer perform the function of the original protein
- associated with recessive, because the presence of an unmutated allele on the other chromosome allows the cell to compensate
What is a Punnett square?
- a common technique for illustrating genetic crosses where the parental genotypes are aligned along the top row and left-hand side of the square, and the genotypic outcomes are obtained by combining one allele from each parent

what is homozygosity?
- homozygous organisms have 2 copies of the same allele
what is heterozygosity?
heterozygous organisms have one copy each of 2 different alleles
what is hemizygous?
- a situation in which only one copy of a given allele is present
when is a test cross performed?
- when we have a phenotypically dominant individual, but want to know its genotype (homozygous dominant or heterozygous)

what is wild type and mutated?
- wild type refers to the default phenotype or genotype that is present in most members of a species, in contrast to a mutation
- sign means has no mutation (wildtype)
- no + sign means has the mutation (mutated)
what is complete dominance?
- one copy of the dominant gene is enough to influence the dominant phenotype, and there is no phenotypic difference bewteen homozygous dominant individuals and heterozygotes

what is codominance?
- takes place when 2 dominant alleles can be expressed at the same time
- ex. ABO blood typing system

what is incomplete dominance?
- occurs when a heterozygote displats a blended phenotype

what is penetrance?
- refers to the likelihood that the carrier of a given genotype (most often associated with a dominant allele) will manifest the corresponding phenotype
- (do you show it or not)
what is expressivity?
- refers to the intensity or extent of variation in the phenotype
- (how much of an effect does a mutation have on the phenotype)
- in humans, this can be thought of as the severity of the condition
- (how much of an effect does a mutation have on the phenotype)
What is a dihybrid cross?
- distribution of 9:3:3:1






