CYTOGENETICS LECTURE 1 PROF.

CABABA

INTRODUCTION TO GENETICS
WHAT IS GENETICS?
GENETICS - The study of heredity
GENES - set of characteristics inherited from
your parents
• Found on chromosomes and
contain DNA
• Recent discoveries on how
characteristics are passed from  Mendel was the first biologist to use
generation to generation Mathematics – to explain his results
quantitatively.
 Mendel predicted
o The concept of genes
o That genes occur in pairs
o That one gene of each pair is present in the
gametes.
Notes:
-A gamete is a reproductive cell of an animal or
plant. In animals, female gametes are called ova
or egg cells, and male gametes are called sperm.
Ova and sperm are haploid cells, with each cell
CHROMOSOMES- carry the hereditary carrying only one copy of each chromosome.
information (genes) -contain half the normal number of chromosomes
• Arrangement of nucleotides in DNA for that plant species. Male gametes are found
DNA - RNA – Proteins inside tiny pollen grains on the anthers of flowers.
GREGOR JOHANN MENDEL Female gametes are found in the ovules of a
 Austrian Monk, born in what is now Czech flower.
Republic in 1822 -job of gametes is to carry out fertilization in
 Son of peasant farmer, studied Theology sexually reproducible organisms. During
and was ordained priest Order St. fertilization, a male gamete (sperm/spermatozoa)
Augustine. fuses with female gamete (egg/oocyte).
 Went to the university of Vienna, where he
 studied botany and learned the Scientific
Method
 Worked with pure lines of peas for eight
years
 Prior to Mendel, heredity was regarded as
a "blending" process and the offspring
were essentially a "dilution"of the different
parental characteristics.
MENDEL’S PEAS
Mendel looked at seven traits or characteristics of
pea plants:

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not appear in the heterozygous condition,

only in homozygous.
 Monohybrid cross
GENETICS TERMS YOU NEED TO KNOW: o a genetic cross involving a single pair of
 Gene genes (one trait); parents differ by a single
o a unit of heredity; a section of DNA trait.
sequence encoding a single protein  P = Parental generation
 Genome  F1 = First filial generation; offspring from a
o the entire set of genes in an organism genetic cross.
 Alleles  F2 = Second filial generation of a genetic
o two genes that occupy cross
the same position on
homologous
chromosomes and that
cover the same trait (like ‘flavors’ of a
trait).
 Locus
o a fixed location on a
strand of DNA
where a gene or one
of its alleles is
located.
 Homozygous
o having identical genes
(one from each parent)
for a particular
characteristic.
Example: AA or GG

MONOHYBRID CROSS
 Heterozygous  Parents differ by a single trait.
o having two different genes for  Crossing two pea plants that differ in stem
a particular characteristic. size, one tall one short
Example Aa: or Gg T = allele for Tall
t = allele for dwarf
 Dominant TT = homozygous tall plant
o the allele of a gene t t = homozygous dwarf plant
that masks or TTxtt
suppresses the
expression of an MONOHYBRID CROSS FOR STEM
alternate allele; the LENGTH:
trait appears in the  A useful tool to do genetic crosses
heterozygous  For a monohybrid cross, you need a square
condition. divided by four....
 Recessive  Looks like a window pane...
o an allele that is Note:
masked by a We use the Punnett square to predict the
dominant allele; does genotypes and phenotypes of the offspring.

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ANOTHER EXAMPLE: FLOWER COLOR

If you cross a homozygous Purple (PP) with a

homozygous white (pp):

CROSS THE F1 GENERATION:

MENDEL’S PRINCIPLES
1. Principle of Dominance:
o One allele masked another, one allele was
dominant over the other in the F1
generation.
2. Principle of Segregation:
o When gametes are formed, the pairs of
hereditary factors (genes) become
separated, so that each sex cell
(egg/sperm) receives only one kind of
gene.

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