Father of Genetics

Objective: To describe the

contributions of Gregor Mendel in
the area of genetics
Bell work:
1. Why don’t you look like your
pet hamster?
You get your genes from your
mom and dad - that’s why you
look like a combination of them
and not your pet hamster. That is,
unless your parents were
hamsters!
© Getting Nerdy, LLC
 A single gene… one from mom,
one from dad…

It’s all in your genes…

On every gene is the code that provides you
with your traits. For example, brown eyes
are among the many options for eye color.
You receive one half of the code from mom
and one half from dad. Depending on how
those codes match up, you may have brown,
blue, green, or some other variation of eye
color. Let’s take this concept and apply it to
Gregor Mendel and his famous pea
experiments…

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 So who was this Mendel
guy anyway?
In 1854, a monk named Gregor Mendel
researched how traits were inherited by
plants. At the time, it was believed that
offspring would inherit a blending of
the traits of each parent. Over 8 years,
Mendel studied inheritance by working
with pea plants because they were easy
to breed and because they had a
variety of traits.

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 GIVE PEAS A CHANCE…
Mendel found in his experiments that the different traits could be:
DOMINANT OR
RECESSIVE
Tall Plant vs. Short Plant

Purple Flower vs. White Flower

Yellow pea vs. Green pea

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 How did Mendel’s Work
Help Genetics?
Mendel developed the following laws:
IIIIx II
X IIIIIxI
X

Law of Segregation: The two parts of a gene

pair or alleles separate from each other in
the formation of sex cells. Half the sex cells
carry one allele, and the other half carry the
other allele.

Law of Independent Assortment: traits are

passed on independently of other traits from
parent to offspring.

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

 Help Mendel!
Watch this
short and sweet video
about our favorite
monk.
Think you can recreate
Mendel’s work? Try
your hand at it with this
interactive site:
Mendel's Web-lab
© Getting Nerdy, LLC
 Now, let’s practice
as we learn about
Young Rat Love…

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 LET’S PUT IT ALL TOGETHER…
Mendel found in his experiments that the different traits could be:
DOMINANT OR
RECESSIVE
Meaning that the dominant trait was the one that showed up in the population
more often, while the recessive trait hid in, or “receded” into, the background.
We call those dominant and recessive genes “alleles.” Depending on how those
alleles pair up, you may see the dominant or the recessive trait.
Dominant alleles are represented with a capital letter: B
Recessive alleles are represented with a lowercase letter: b
Two of the same alleles are considered homozygous or purebred: BB, bb
Two different alleles are considered heterozygous or hybrid: Bb

Putting them together can make several combinations:

BB: homozygous dominant – two dominants = DOMINANT
Bb: heterozygous dominant – dominant covers up recessive = DOMINANT
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 LET’S PUT IT ALL TOGETHER…

DOMINANT OR
short
RECESSIVE
TT, Tt tt
The letter combination of alleles is called the genotype: For
example in the tall versus short plant above, if T = dominant, and
t = recessive, what would the genotypes be?
The physical expression is called the phenotype: For example,
the phenotype is what we physically “see.” So, in the pea plant
example above, what would we “see” for the dominant trait?
The recessive trait?

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

 Two young rats are in love and want to start a family!
Let’s see if we can predict what their children will look
like.
We’ll start by looking at the alleles that control fur
color. Keep in mind that a rat has two genes for every
trait (one from mom and one from dad), and one of
those two genes gets passed along to its offspring. We
have a male with the genotype Aa, which is the agouti
(brown and black mix) phenotype, and the female has
the genotype, aa, and has a black phenotype. Let’s
figure out what color fur their offspring might have.

MALE FEMALE
Genotype: Aa Genotype: aa
Phenotype: Agouti Phenotype: Black
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 We start by creating the box like the
following:

Punnett squares are a very useful genetics tool. They

help us in determining possible offspring genotype
combinations and phenotypes like size of ears, color of
eyes, or color of fur.

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 Now we have all of the possibilities available from this pair of
Werats.put
Now According
carrythethe A toallele
male’s
top the Punnett
of the
a alleles,
allele Square,
male
ofAa,
the at 2 out
into
female
the toofeach
each
top, 4box
boxes,
one below
box or
allele
at
50%,
it.
above
the ofeach
Then the
right. baby
carry
The rats
Andawould
box.the
dominantallele
the have
female’s
allelethe
of the genotype
male into
is alleles,
always aa,Aa, which
each
written
on boxis
thefirst.
left
below
side,
Now
the oneit. beside
carry
agouti the bottom
each box.
phenotype a allele of the
(remember thatfemale to eachtrait
the dominant box
at its right.
covers up the recessive trait when they are together), and 2
out of 4 boxes, or 50%, would have the genotype aa, which is
the black phenotype.
A a
GENOTYPES:
Aa: 50%
aa: 50%
a
PHENOTYPES:
Agouti: 50% a
Black: 50%
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 Did you get
Let’s them right?
practice!
Identify whether each is homozygous (purebred)
or heterozygous (hybrid):
1. GG - Ho 6. Aa - He
2. Gg - He 7. aa - Ho
3. gg - Ho 8. Ss - He
4. Rr - He 9. LL - Ho
5. RR - Ho 10. rr - Ho

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

 More practice!
Find the probability of offspring for
each problem:
11. D = dimples d = no dimples
A male who is Dd mates with a
female who is homozygous
D d
recessive for the trait.
a. What is the female’s genotype?
d
dd
b. Complete a punnett square to
determine the probability that
they will produce a child with d
dimples.
Dimples: DD or Dd
TWO boxes or 50% of children
have dimples: Dd
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 EVEN MORE PRACTICE!!!
12. B = Brown eyes b = blue eyes
A woman that is heterozygous for
brown eyes has children with a B b
man who is also heterozygous for
brown eyes.
a. Draw a punnett square showing
B Bb
the types of offspring possible
for this cross.
b. What is the probability that they b
would have a child with blue
eyes?
Blue eyes = bb = 1/4 boxes = 25%
© Getting Nerdy, LLC
 Squaring it Up
Objective: To determine how
traits are passed from parent to
offspring
Bell Work:
1. Two short-haired guinea
pigs are mated several
times. Out of 100 offspring,
25 of them have long hair.
What are the probable
genotypes of the parents?
25/100 = ¼
________ X ________ Offspring Outcome:
Ss Ss ¼ SS ½ Ss ¼ ss = short
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 Try your hand at
these Punnett
Squares and see if
you can “Square It
Up!”

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 You’re Such a Square!
Objective: To determine the
probability of inheriting a trait
Bell work:
1. What do each of the four boxes
represent in a Punnett Square?

Four possible offspring that a

breeding pair can have. Each
square equals 25% of the total.

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

 You’re Such a
Square… Or Are You?
Let’s see how many
of these Punnett
Squares you can
complete correctly…

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 Yellow and Blue Make…?
Objective: To understand other inheritance patterns
Bell work:
A man with straight hair marries a woman with curly hair.
They have a child with wavy hair. How do you explain
this?
Some traits are not determined by simple dominant-
recessive relationships but instead blend together. Let’s
learn about it!

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

 A single gene… one from mom,
one from dad…

It’s all in your genes…

So, everything we have studied so far has
been applied to the simple Medelian
genetics principles of dominant and
recessive traits. We already mentioned that
brown eyes are among the many options for
eye color. Remember, you receive one half
of the code from mom and one half from dad
and depending on how those codes match
up, you may have brown, blue, green, or
some other variation of eye color. How does
that happen?

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

 A LITTLE REVIEW…
Mendel found in his experiments that the different traits could be:
DOMINANT OR
TT, Tt
RECESSIVE
tt
Tall Plant vs. Short Plant

Meaning that when there are two alleles present in the HETEROZYGOUS
state, the DOMINANT trait tends to COVER up the RECESSIVE trait.

Mendelian genetics is GREAT, but how do you explain how you have green
eyes when mom has brown and dad has blue? What about your brother’s
wavy hair when everyone in your family has curly hair, except mom, who has
straight hair?

© Getting Nerdy, LLC Let’s find out…

 INCOMPLETE DOMINANCE:
WHEN
DOMINANT & RECESSIVE TRAITS ARE
COMBINED IN THE HETEROZYGOUS STATE AND
RESULT IN A BLENDING OF THE TRAITS
Parents have only two alleles, and often times, inheriting those traits may
result in a blending of traits. In Incomplete dominance, neither the
dominant or recessive is shown, but instead they blend together to create
an entirely different phenotype.

Let’s say a black Andalusian chicken and a white Andalusian Chicken

mate, creating a clutch of eggs that are all blue chicks. This
? is an
example of incomplete dominance, where the HETEROZYGOUS trait
results in a blending of the two phenotypes.

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

 INCOMPLETE DOMINANCE
Let’s complete a Punnett Square to see how all of this works:

B B
Because of
W Incomplete
BW = blueall
Dominance,
of the offspring
W will be blue.

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 INCOMPLETE DOMINANCE
What if we cross our blue chicken with another blue chicken?

B W
Here we see a
variety of traits,
B B where the
homozygous
W genotypes result in
the black and
W white phenotypes
again…

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

 CODOMINANCE: WHEN DOMINANT & RECESSIVE
TRAITS ARE COMBINED IN THE HETEROZYGOUS STATE
AND RESULT IN BOTH TRAITS BEING EXPRESSED
Similar to our dog breeding example from before, codominance is expressed in
the heterozygous form. In this example, let’s use two peonies, one that is white,
the other peach. When crossed together, the HETEROZYGOUS trait results in
the expression of both phenotypes, a white & peach peony.

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

?
 CODOMINANCE
Let’s complete a Punnett Square to see how all of this works:

P P
Codominance
results in a white
W PW and=peach
peach
and white
phenotype
W expression in all
of the offspring

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 MULTIPLE ALLELES: WHEN THERE ARE MORE THAN
TWO ALLELES FOR A SPECIFIC TRAIT
Remember that parents only have two alleles they can pass on to their offspring.
However, when 4 or more phenotypes exist in a population, then there must be
several different alleles (more than 2) to choose from. The classic example we
use in biology is Blood Type.

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 MULTIPLE ALLELES
There are 4 phenotypes for human blood: A, B, AB, AND O. There are three
alleles that you can possibly inherit from your parents.

IA : Type A Blood
IB : Type B Blood
i : Type O Blood
Depending on how the three alleles combine, you can have one of four
phenotypes of blood. IA and IB are always DOMINANT over i, but are
CODOMINANT when combined together.

IA IA , IA i : Type A Blood
IB IB , IB i : Type B Blood
IA IB : Type AB Blood
i i : Type O Blood
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 MULTIPLE ALLELES
Let’s look at a Punnett Square to see how blood type is inherited:
Let’s cross two individuals, one who is HETEROZYGOUS for Type A Blood and
another who is HETEROZYGOUS for Type B Blood

IA i

I B IB i

i
When we complete this cross, you can see how the multiple alleles result in
several phenotypes. The DOMINANT IA and IB win out over the RECESSIVE i
resulting in the Type A and Type B Blood. We see CODOMINANCE occur when
IA and IB combine, resulting in Type AB Blood. And the RECESSIVE i combines
with it’s buddy to form Type O Blood.
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 POLYGENIC INHERITANCE: WHEN A TRAIT IS
CONTROLLED BY MORE THAN ONE (POLY=MANY) GENE
Sometimes, more than one gene may control the expression of a trait or
characteristic. Eye, hair and skin color, as well as body shape and height are all
examples of polygenic inheritance that occurs in humans.

Eye color is controlled by three different genes, 2 of which are on one

chromosome, and the 3rd on a second chromosome. This results in 6 alleles that
control what color your eyes are, from light blue to dark brown, depending on
how those alleles are combined.

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 POLYGENIC INHERITANCE
Since six different alleles may control eye color, the combination of alleles from
each gene may look something like this (for our purposes, we are simplifying this
cross using Aa, Bb and Cc as our alleles):

A a

C c

Remember that you only get one of each chromosome from each parent, so you
may get a dominant or recessive trait from each gene.
Let’s pretend that two people mate with the genotypes AaBbCc x AaBbCc
What sort of genotype combinations can results from this breeding pair?
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 POLYGENIC INHERITANCE
Depending on the number of DOMINANT genes you inherit, you can have very
dark eyes
When (SIX AaBbCc
we cross DOMINANTS) or very
x AaBbCc, thelight eyes
results of(SIX RECESSIVES).
the general Variations
population in
look like
between
aThis would with
resultlots
in intermediate hues.the
Thisoffspring
conceptgenotypes
applies to and
height,
example
bell curve, ofof Polygenic
variation
sizes, shapes, and colors
within
of many
Inheritance
other traits as well!
is a
phenotypes.
challenging
ABC ABc
one,
AbC
butaBC
it demonstrates
abC aBc
how abc
Abc
this type of inheritance can result in so
ABC AABBCC AABBCc AABbCC AaBBCC AaBbCC AaBBCc AABbCc AaBbCc
many phenotypes within a population.
ABc AABBCc AABBcc AABbCc AaBBCc AaBbCc AaBBcc AABbcc AaBbcc
Keep mind, however, that environmental
AbC AABbCC AABbCc AAbbCC AaBbCC AabbCC AaBbCc AAbbCc AabbCc
factors such as diet and other
aBC AaBBCC AaBBCc AaBbCC aaBBCc aaBbCC aaBBCc AaBbCc aaBbCc
conditions can affect whether these
abC AaBbCC AaBbCc AabbCC aaBbCC aabbCC aaBbCc AabbCc aabbCc
traits are fully expressed. For
aBc AaBBCc AaBBcc AaBbCc aaBBCc aaBbCc aaBBcc AaBbcc aaBbcc
example, you may not reach your full
Abc AABbCc AABbcc AAbbCc AaBbCc AabbCc AaBbcc AAbbcc Aabbcc

height
abc AaBbCc AaBbccif AabbCc
you are aaBbCcmalnourished.
aabbCc aaBbcc Aabbcc aabbcc

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 So what does this all mean
anyway?
- You have 23 pairs of chromosomes, located in
every cell of your body
- The genes on your chromosomes control what
That’s why we share so
your traits “look like” through phenotype
many similar
expression
- Some traits follow simple dominant/recessive
characteristics yet are
relationships.
- Some traits are more complex, combining to
separated by many
form completely new phenotypes or show
subtle differences!
both the dominant and recessive traits in the
phenotype
- Other traits require the help of multiple genes
in order to fully express the phenotype
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 Let’s Put It All Together…
Now try your hand at some
Punnett Square practice with
these special types of
inheritance.

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 A Twisted Tale…
Objective: To determine how
traits are passed from parent to
offspring
Bell work:
1. In what organelle do we find
the instructions for our
traits?
Nucleus
2. What are those instructions
called?
DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid

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 Let’s start at the
source…
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid,
resides inside the nucleus of
every living cell. It was
discovered in 1869 but the
structure remained a mystery. In
1952, using X-ray photography,
Rosalind Franklin observed DNA,
but could not identify the shape.
A year later, Francis Crick and
James Watson used her images
to describe the twisted ladder or
DOUBLE HELIX structure of DNA.
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 The steps of the ladder are made up of pairs of molecules
called nitrogen bases.
There are 4 kinds: Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, & Guanine
ADENINE ONLY pairs with THYMINE
CYTOSINE ONLY pairs with GUANINE
G C

A T

G C

T A

T A

C G
T A

T A
C G
A T
T A
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 In 1950, Erwin Chargraff
analyzed the base pair G C
composition of DNA. He A T
discovered that: C
G
% ADENINE = % THYMINE T A
AND T A

% CYTOSINE = % GUANINE C
T A
G

Meaning, there is the same

T A
amount of Adenine and Thymine C G
and the same amount of A T
Cytosine and Guanine, providing T A
evidence that they pair with one
another.

© Getting Nerdy, LLC

 We go together like peas and carrots!
Use the rules of base-pairing to make a strand of DNA by
writing the correct base in the top row to match the base
provided in the bottom row:
New DNA strand

C G T T A G C T T C G G A T A A C T G
G C A A T C G A A G C C T A T T G A C

Original DNA strand

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 We go together like peas and carrots!
Can you make another?

New DNA strand

G C A A T C G T C A A T G C G A T C C
C G T T A G C A G T T A C G C T A G G
Original DNA strand

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 Now color your DNA double helix using the base pair color key. Color
How did you do?
© Getting Nerdy, LLC the sides of the ladder in any colors you choose.
 So, now what…?
What’s the purpose? To provide you (and other living things) with the
traits that make you, well… YOU! That’s genetics… but how does
genetics affect populations of organisms in the long run?! THAT’s
Evolution- and that’s a whole other story!

© Getting Nerdy, LLC