Mendelian Genetics- lecture #16 & 17 Flashcards
why did mendel use garden peas for his experiments?
many different versions avaliable
short generation times
produce large number of offspring
self fertilizing (each flower has male and female parts)
why didn’t Mendel breed with humans?
takes a long time to reproduce
infrequent to have more than 1 offspring
we have so many traits from ancestors…
what are characters?
varied heritable features
gene for something
what are examples of characters?
flower color, hair color, eye color
what are traits?
variant of a character
we get 2 traits inherited
what examples of traits?
purple flowers and white flowers
brown eyes vs blue eyes
brown hair vs blonde hair
how is a pea plant self-fertilizing? what parts makes it self fertilizing?
egg bearing carpel
pollen producing stamen
what allowed Mendel to control gametes used in fertilization?
removed the immature stamen
dusted the carpel with pollen taken from a different stamen
used true breeding individuals
what is a true breeding individual?
produce the parent variety only (all future generations will be of the same color as the parent only)
PP or pp
what is hybridization?
cross of two different true breeding plants
the two true breeding individuals form what generation?
parent generation
P gen
hybrids produced from the P gen become what generation?
F1 generation
not true breeding
what comprises the F2 generation?
two members from the F1 generation produce F2 generation
what is the law of segregation?
blending doesnt happen, flower is either purple or white, not light purple
if theres a cross between a white flower and a purple why might the next generation be mostly purple?
because its dominant (white is still in the genes of the next generation though, even if not expressed)
what were mendels 4 key observations?
- alternate versions of genes account for variation in inherited characteristics
- an organism will have two copies of each character
- if two alleles at a locus differ from one another, the dominant allele will determine the organism’s appearance
- law of segregation
what are alternate versions of a character called?
allele
DNA at the same locus of homologous pairs may exhibit what?
slight variation in nucleotide sequence
what does this variation in nucleotide sequence give rise to?
different allele of the same character
many alternate alleles are possible
- an organism will have two copies of each character, what does that mean?
one gene copy will originate from the father and one will originate from the mother
what does homozygous mean?
identical alleles of a gene
heterozygous
two copies different from one another, what is that called
why did the white pea plant ‘disappear’ in the F1 generation?
recessive allele
what is the process to determine which gametes are used in fertilization?
two alleles separate during meiosis
end up in separate gametes
if the two alleles are the same, all 4 gametes produced will have the same allele for the gene (all brown eyes)
if the two alleles are different then 2 gametes will have the dominant allele (brown eyes) and two will have the recessive allele (blue eyes)