CYTOGENETICS

Topic Outline
Prokaryotes vs Eukaryotes
Mitosis vs Meiosis
Mendel’s Experiment
DNA and RNA (Introduction)
Mendel and Mendelian Genetics

• Gregor Mendel 1822-1884

• Published his findings in 1865
Quick Review
Review (continued)
Still Review
 Mendel
• Considered the father
of modern genetics
• Studied inheritance of
pea plants
• Said that inheritance
followed certain laws.
• His laws were not well
accepted at first.
Why Pea Plants?
• Mendel used pea
plants in his
experiments largely
because of their ability
to self pollinate.
 Mendel’s laws of inheritance
• Mendel came up with
two major laws of
inheritance:
– The law of segregation
(4 parts)
– The law of independent
assortment.
 Law of Segregation
• There are four parts to this law
1) There are alternate versions of genes called alleles.
2) For each characteristic, an organism inherits two alleles.
3) Alleles interact in a number of ways. (dominance,
incomplete dominance, codominance)
4) The two alleles for a trait separate during gamete
production
Law of independent assortment
• This law states the
inheritance of one trait
will not affect the
inheritance of another.
• This is only true for
traits that are not
linked.
 The importance of Mendel
• Why is Mendel’s work so important?
– Before his time no one took the time to figure out
how traits were passed on.
– Mendel’s work laid the basic framework for other
scientists to build on.
 After Mendel
• Mendel’s work was rediscovered in 1900.
• Other scientists started to add to his ideas to
build the current model of genetics as we
know it.
• This is called classical genetics.
 Crosses
• Heterozygote: contains
both types of alleles for
a trait. (Aa)
• Homozygous: contains
only one allele for a
trait (AA or aa)
• Generations are
labeled as F#
 Monohybrid vs Dihybrid
• Monohybrid = Aa X Aa
• Dihybrid = AaBb X
AaBb
• Law of independent
assortment says that
the inheritance of A
will not effect B.