GENETICS (STB 221)

MENDEL’S EXPERIMNT

• Terminologies

• Monohybrid inheritance

• Mendel’s first law

• Explanation to Mendel’s first law

Terminologies

• Alleles: The two individual genes in a particular gene pair.

• Homozygote: Individuals that bear similar alleles in a gene pair are said to be in
homozygous

condition. E.g. TT, tt, SS, AA, etc.

• Heterozygote: An individual whose alleles of a gene pair are dissimilar. Such a

condition is

referred to as heterozygous condition e.g. Tt, Aa, Ss etc.

• Recessive gene: A gene whose character is only expressed in homozygous condition.

• Dominant gene: A gene whose character is expressed in an heterozygous condition

• Phenotype: The expressed character or the character that can be observed in an

organism.

• Genotype: This is the genetic make-up of an organism.

It refers to the particular genetic material that an organism inherits from its parent

• Linkage: When genes located on a particular chromosome in a linear fashion cannot

act

independent of each other or one another.

• Monohybrid: Individuals that differ in a single pair of gene located on the same locus
eg TT and tt

individuals

• Dihybrid: Individuals that differ in two pairs of genes eg smooth and yellow seeded
plant (SSYY) or

wrinkled and green seeded plant (ssyy)

MENDEL’S EXPERIMNT

• Mendel performed monhybrid and dihybrid inheritance studies

• H e selected for his work the common garden pea (Pisum sativum).

• There are several reasons which made the plant a suitable material for study of
inheritance namely;

It is an annual plant and has a short life cycle

The flowers were fairly large and can easily be emasculated

The crop is easy to cultivate being a food crop

The plant also has a number of contrasting characters in;

i. Flowers (purple, red or white colours)

ii. plant height (tall or dwarf),

iii. seed colour (yellow or green ) and

iv. seed texture (smooth or wrinkled).

Mendel concentrated on a pair of character at a time and carefully traced through many
successive

generations.

• In one of the series of experiments, he selected tallness and dwarfiness of plants.

• It did not matter whether he took the dwarf plant as the male and the tall plant as the
female one or

vice versa (reciprocal crosses).

• The results he achieved in these experiments were the same in all cases.

• H e brought about artificial crossing between the tall and the dwarf plant.

• In due course, seeds collected from the crossed plant were sewn

• The hybrid progeny that came up were all tall (with the dwarf character remaining
hidden in them).

• This generation was called the F1 generation.

Monohybrid inheritance

Seeds collected from the f1 plants were sewn again the following year
• It was observed that they gave rise to a mixed generation of tall (787) plants and dwarf
(277)

plants.

• This gave an approximate ratio of 3:1.

• This generation was called the second filial generation (f2).

• All dwarf of the f2 generation bred true producing dwarfs only in the 3rd and
subsequent generations.

• Seeds collected from f2 tall plants and sewn separately, one-third of the tall plants
bred true

while two-thirds of the talls gave ratio 3:1.

• The f2 genotypic ratios may be expressed as 1:2:1.

The conclusions

• From his experiment, Mendel made the following conclusions:

For any character, the F1 derived from crosses between two parents with contrasting
or

alternative characters showed one of the traits and never the other.

It did not matter which parent variety provided the pollen or which provided the ova,
the result

will always be the same, and that is, there is no reciprocal difference.

Hidden character regularly reappear in subsequent generation especially the f2

generation after a cross between two parents with contrasting character

Mendel’s first law of inheritance

• Mendel deduced his first law called the ‘law of segregation’ from his study of
monohybrid inheritance.

• The law states that ‘members of allelic pair go into different cells w hen germ cells
(gametes) are

formed’

Explanation to Mendel’s first law

• This is provided by meiosis. In meiosis, homologous chromosomes segregate from

each other
• As a result of which a gamete receives only one type of chromosome instead of the
normal two

• G enes also occur in pairs, each being located on one of two homologous
chromosomes

• When homologous chromosomes segregate in meiosis, they take their genes with
them

• Thus, a gamete receives only one allele, just as they receive one of the pairs of
chromosomes

• The segregation of Mendel’s factor in inheritance and the segregation of homologous

chromosomes in

meiosis is similar

• This provided one of the earliest pieces of evidence that genes are located on the
chromosomes

Some monohybrid inheritance in man

i. Albinism:

• This condition occurs as the result of failure of external pigment to develop in an

individual resulting in

such individual having a light skin, white hair and pink eyes.

• It is caused by a recessive gene which appears only in individuals that are homozygous
for this gene.

ii. Cystic fibrosis

• This is a congenital disease in which connective tissues develop in the various glands
of the body

particularly the pancreas.

• It is caused by a recessive gene and only people homozygous for this gene develop the
condition.

iii Chondro-dytrophic dw arfism

• This is a disorder that interferes with the body’s normal development of cartilage,
leading to abnormal

skeletal growth and formation.

• Affected person are characterized by normal-sized trunks, but shortened and

deformed arms and legs.
• It is caused by a recessive gene, which exert its effects in homozygous conditions