Mechanisms of Hereditary Flashcards
What 3 questions did Mendel want to answer?
- What is inherited?
- How is it inherited?
- What is the role of chance?
Blended Inheritance
Information from parents is irreversibly linked, there is no way for it to be separated out again.
Discrete Inheritance
Information from parents is passed down and maintained separately in an individual
Monohybrid Cross
Cross between 2 individuals that differ in only 1 trait
True-Breeders Definition
Homozygous organisms who’s phenotype is always passed on to their offspring
Advantages of using Pea plants
- Short generation time (1 yr per offspring)
- Individuals produce lots of offspring
- Hermaphroditic (i.e. can self-fertilise)
- Clear-cut binary qualitative traits (e.g. yellow OR green)
Reciprocal Crosses
2 Monohybrid crosses with the same trait being investigate, but the parent phenotypes switch in the second cross (i.e. if dad was purple in first cross, mom will be purple in second cross)
Results of Mendel’s first experiments
- In F2 gen, sometimes 1 of the parental phenotypes that disappeared would reappear
- Reappeared in ration of ±1:3
- This disproved blended inheritance
Conclusions from Mendel’s first experiments
- Some phenotypes are more dominant over others
- 2 units of inheritance in every trait in an individual - 1 from father, 1 from mother. These are maintained in the individual.
Mendels 1st Law
Principle of Segregation
- The 2 alleles for each trait segregate during gamete formation and then unite randomly at fertilisation (1 from each parent)
The Product Rule
When event are completely independent of each other (gamete formation)
- Probability of 2 independent event occurring together is the product of the probability that each event will occur on its own
i. e. prob of throwing 2 6’s in a row = 1/6 x1/6 = 1/36
The Sum Rule
Phenotypic classes (gamete fusion)
- Probability of 2 mutually exclusive events occurring is the sum of their individual probabilities
i. e. prob of throwing a 5 OR a 6 in a single dice roll: 1/6 +1/6 = 2/6
Test Cross
Cross an individual with an unclear genotype with a homozygous recessive individual
- If all F1 gen are dominant phenotypes then mystery individual must by homozygous dominant
- If 50-50 then must be heterozygous
Dihybrid Crosses
Crosses with 2 different traits
Recombinant phenotypes
New combinations of phenotypes that don’t correspond to either of the parents