Simple Inheritance in Animals and Plants: Mendel and DNA

Question 1

Who is Gregor Mendel?

Answer 1

an Austrian monk

Question 2

What did he discover?

Answer 2

basic principles of inherited factors

Question 3

What do we now call these ‘factors’?

Answer 3

genes

Question 4

What type of plant did he use in his experiment?

Answer 4

pea plant

Question 5

What did he do?

Answer 5

• cross-pollinated smooth yellow plant with wrinkly green plant
• self-pollinated all-yellow plants from parent plants

Question 6

What did he find?

Answer 6

• yellow completely dominated green; smooth dominated wrinkly
• ratio of 3:1 of yellow:green plants and round:wrinkly

Question 7

What conclusions did he draw from his experiment?

Answer 7

• Law of Segregration: offspring inherit one genetic allele from each parent
• Law of Independent Assortment: characteristics of offspring is determined by separately inherited genes
• Law of Dominance: hereditary units (genes) are either dominant or recessive

Question 8

Why was Mendel’s theory not accepted in his lifetime?

Answer 8

• scientists didn’t know about genes and chromosomes

- didn’t have a scientific journal

Question 9

What is a gene?

Answer 9

small section of DNA

Question 10

What does DNA stand for?

Answer 10

deoxybribonucleic acid

Question 11

What is DNA?

Answer 11

genetic code using bases to code an amino acid to make a specific protein
- this determines what type of cell it is

Question 12

How can people be identified by their DNA?

Answer 12

everyone has unique DNA (except identical twins)

- they can be identified by DNA fingerprinting

Question 13

Where is DNA fingerprinting used?

Answer 13

• forensic science

- paternity testing (checking who the father is)

Question 14

What type of structure does DNA have?

Answer 14

double helix structure