Subject Name: Genetics

Subject Code: BBT 205

Unit No: 1 Unit Name: Mendelian Genetics

Faculty Name : Dr. Priti Uchgaonkar
Unit 1: Mendelian Genetics

Faculty Name : Dr. Priti Uchgaonkar

Unit No: 1 Unit name: Mendelian Genetics

Lecture No: 5
Sub Topic Name: Disciplines in genetics
 Disciplines in genetics..

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 Disciplines in genetics..

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 Animal genetics..

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 Animal genetics..

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 Animal genetics..

 Animal breeding is the application of principle of Genetics and Physiology of

Reproduction for improvement of the animals.
 Improvement is betterment of the characters both qualitative and quantitative over
those of the ancestors, over that of the average of family, breed are species.
 Animal breed: breed is group of livestock (animals) with in the species of common
origin.
 They have certain distinguishing characters not found in members of other group in
the same species. These characters are transmitted to successive generation.
 Breeder: Breeder is one who planned and determined the type of mating.

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 Animal genetics..

 Animal breeding, genetics, and genomics is the branch of science concerned with maximizing
desirable genetic traits, such as producing animals that have leaner meat (meat with low fat
content). Animal geneticists have identified elements within genes that can enhance animal
growth, health, and ability to utilize nutrients. These genetic advances can increase production
while reducing environmental impacts.
 IMPORTANCE OF ANIMAL BREEDING
 Animals and livestock contribute 40 percent of the global value of agricultural output and
contribute to the livelihoods and food security of almost a billion people worldwide. Advances in
animal breeding, genetics, and genomics are facilitating a more efficient industry. For example,
the number of cattle has decreased over the past decade, yet the total production of beef and
milk has increased. This was largely possible because genetic advancements led better
animal feed efficiency which is critical to improving livestock production and lowering costs for
producers.

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 Animal genetics..

 Animal Health
 Monitoring animal health and preventing animal disease outbreaks is vital to the economy and safety of
the country’s food supply. Production of healthy livestock helps to ensure a safe food supply and keep
consumer prices stable.
 IMPORTANCE OF ANIMAL HEALTH
 Animal disease outbreaks can cost the country millions of dollars due to animal slaughters, trade halts,
and subsequent disease eradication efforts. Animal diseases with human health implications can
adversely impact public health, global trade, and the stability of the agricultural segment of the
economy. Healthy animals are more likely to result in:
 Safer food supplies
 Higher farm productivity (including increased numbers of offspring)
 Reduced environmental impacts
 Reduced use of antibiotics
 Improved animal well-being

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 Animal genetics..

 IMPORTANCE OF ANIMAL PRODUCTION

 To meet projected demand for animal products, the industry must streamline production and advance
capacity to prevent, detect, diagnose, and treat animal diseases.

 The health and quality of livestock is influenced by genetics, care, nutrition, and environment. The quality of
animal products is affected by production methods and marketing practices. Scientists study the conditions
in which animals are raised as well as how animal products are manufactured and marketed in order to
produce:

 Good quality of life for animals

 Healthy livestock that reach full production potential

 A nutritious and safe food supply

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 Animal genetics..

 Aquaculture involves the breeding, rearing, and harvesting of freshwater and marine species of fish, shellfish,

and aquatic plants. Producers farm in all types of water environments, including ponds, rivers, lakes, oceans,

and land-based, closed recirculating -water systems.

 IMPORTANCE OF AQUACULTURE

 Faced with a rapidly rising world population, scientists, farmers, and policymakers are seeking ways to meet

future food demand. Interest in aquaculture production is on the rise because wild harvest of many seafood

species is currently at or above maximum sustainable levels. Advancing the development of aquaculture

presents one viable solution to this challenge, offering a wide range of benefits, including:

 Meeting growing food needs

 Providing consumers with high nutritional content (especially protein and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids)

content

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Unit No: 1 Unit name: Mendelian Genetics

Lecture No: 5
Sub Topic Name: Plant genetics
 Plant genetics..

 Plant genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity specifically in plants. It is generally considered a field
of biology and botany, but intersects frequently with many other life sciences and is strongly linked with the study of
information systems.
 The study of plant genetics has major economic impacts: many staple crops are genetically modified to increase yields,
confer pest and disease resistance, provide resistance to herbicides, or to increase their nutritional value.
 Plant Breeding: The application of genetic analysis to development of plant lines better suited for human purposes.
 Plant Breeding and Selection Methods to meet the food, feed, fuel, and fiber needs of the world
 Genetic Engineering to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of plant breeding
 Food (yield and nutritional value), feed, fibre, pharmaceuticals (plantibodies), landscape, industrial need (eg. Crops are
being produced in regions to which they are not native).
 Genetically modified (GM) foods are produced from organisms that have had changes introduced into their DNA using the
methods of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering techniques allow for the introduction of new traits as well as greater
control over traits than previous methods such as selective breeding and mutation breeding

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 Plant genetics..

 Genetically modified (GM) foods are produced from organisms that have had changes introduced
into their DNA using the methods of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering techniques allow
for the introduction of new traits as well as greater control over traits than previous methods
such as selective breeding and mutation breeding

 Most food modifications have primarily focused on cash crops in high demand by farmers such
as soybean, corn, canola, and cotton. Genetically modified crops have been engineered for
resistance to pathogens and herbicides and for better nutrient profiles. Other such crops include
the economically important GM papaya which are resistant to the highly destructive
Papaya ringspot virus, and the nutritionally improved golden rice

 There are still ongoing public concerns related to food safety, regulation, labeling, environmental
impact, research methods, and the fact that some GM seeds are subject to intellectual property
rights owned by corporations.

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Unit No: 1 Unit name: Mendelian Genetics

Lecture No: 5
Sub Topic Name: Microbial genetics
 Microbial genetics..

 Microbial genetics is the study of the mechanisms of heritable information in

microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, viruses and some protozoa and fungi.

 Microbes like E. coli are ideally suited for biochemical and genetics studies and have
made huge contributions to these fields of science (Example – DNA as genetic material,
structure of genes, gene expression etc) is process as well.

 Another bacterium which has greatly contributed to the field of genetics is

Thermus aquaticus, which is a bacterium that tolerates high temperatures. From this
microbe scientists isolated the enzyme Taq polymerase, which is now used in the
powerful experimental technique, Polymerase chain reaction(PCR).

 Additionally the development of recombinant DNA technology through the use of

bacteria has led to the birth of modern genetic engineering and biotechnology.

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 Microbial genetics..

 Using microbes, protocols were developed to insert genes into bacterial plasmids, taking advantage
of their fast reproduction, to make biofactories for the gene of interest. Such genetically engineered
bacteria can produce pharmaceuticals such as insulin, human growth hormone, interferons and
blood clotting factors. These biofactories are typically much cheaper to operate and maintain than
the alternative procedures of producing pharmaceuticals.
 Microbes synthesize a variety of enzymes for industrial applications, such as fermented foods,
laboratory test reagents, dairy products (such as renin), and even in clothing (such as Trichoderma
fungus whose enzyme is used to give jeans a stone washed appearance).

 Microbes are an abundant source of lipases which have a wide variety of industrial and consumer
applications. Microbial enzymes are typically preferred for mass production due to the wide variety of
functions available and their ability to be mass produced.

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 Microbial genetics..

 Other already successful applications of lipolytic enzymes include the production

of biofuels, polymers, non-stereoisomeric pharmaceuticals, agricultural
compounds, and flavor-enhancing compounds

 Viral genetics is another key part of microbial genetics. The genetics of viruses
that attack bacteria were the first to be elucidated. Since then, studies and
findings of viral genetics have been applied to viruses pathogenic on plants and
animals, including humans. Viruses are also used as vectors (agents that carry
and introduce modified genetic material into an organism) in DNA technology.

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Unit No: 1 Unit name: Mendelian Genetics

Lecture No: 5
Sub Topic Name: Molecular genetics
 Molecular genetics..

 Molecular genetics is the study of the molecular structure of DNA, its cellular activities
(including its replication), and its influence in determining the overall makeup of an
organism.

 Molecular genetics relies heavily on genetic engineering (recombinant DNA technology

), which can be used to modify organisms by adding foreign DNA, thereby forming
transgenic organisms.
 Since the early 1980s, these techniques have been used extensively in basic biological
research and are also fundamental to the biotechnology industry, which is devoted to
the manufacture of agricultural and medical products.

 Transgenesis forms the basis of gene therapy, the attempt to cure genetic disease by
addition of normally functioning genes from exogenous sources.

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 Molecular genetics..

 This field addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules
manifests as variation among organisms.
 Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the
structure and/or function of genes in an organism's genome using genetic screens.
 The field of study is based on the merging of several sub-fields in biology: classical
Mendelian inheritance, cellular biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and
biotechnology.
 Researchers search for mutations in a gene or induce mutations in a gene to link a
gene sequence to a specific phenotype.
 Molecular genetics is a powerful methodology for linking mutations to genetic
conditions that may aid the search for treatments/cures for various genetics diseases.

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Unit No: 1 Unit name: Mendelian Genetics

Lecture No: 5
Sub Topic Name: Quantitative genetics
 Quantitative genetics..

 Quantitative genetics deals with phenotypes that vary continuously (in characters such as height or mass)
—as opposed to discretely identifiable phenotypes and gene-products (such as eye-colour).
 Quantitative and population genetics, both, use the frequencies of different alleles of a gene in breeding
populations and combine them with concepts from simple Mendelian inheritance to analyze inheritance
patterns across generations and descendant lines.
 While population genetics can focus on particular genes and their subsequent metabolic products,
quantitative genetics focuses more on the outward phenotypes, and makes summaries only of the
underlying genetics.
 Due to the continuous distribution of phenotypic values, quantitative genetics employs many statistical
methods (such as the effect size, the mean and the variance) to link phenotypes (attributes) to genotypes.
 Some phenotypes may be analyzed either as discrete categories or as continuous phenotypes, depending on
the definition of cut-off points, or on the metric used to quantify them. Mendel himself had to discuss this
matter in his famous paper, especially with respect to his peas attribute tall/dwarf, which actually was
"length of stem".

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 Quantitative genetics..

 Traits such as size, obesity or longevity vary greatly among individuals, and have
continuously distributed phenotypes that do not show simple Mendelian inheritance.
 Quantitative genetics, also referred to as the genetics of complex traits, is the study of
such characters and is based on a model in which many genes influence the trait and
in which non-genetic factors may also be important.
 The framework can also be used for the analysis of traits such as litter size that take a
few discrete values, and of binary characters such as survival to adulthood that have a
polygenic basis.
 The quantitative genetics approach has diverse applications: it is fundamental to an
understanding of variation and covariation among relatives in natural and managed
populations, of the dynamics of evolutionary change, and of methods for animal and
plant improvement and alleviation of complex disease.

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Unit No: 1 Unit name: Mendelian Genetics

Lecture No: 5
Sub Topic Name: Behavioral genetics
 Behavioral genetics..

 Another aspect of genetics is the study of the influence of heredity on behaviour.

 Many aspects of animal behaviour are genetically determined and can therefore
be treated as similar to other biological properties. This is the subject material
of behaviour genetics, whose goal is to determine which genes control various
aspects of behaviour in animals.
 Human behaviour is difficult to analyze because of the powerful effects of
environmental factors, such as culture. Few cases of genetic determination of
complex human behaviour are known.
 Genomics studies provide a useful way to explore the genetic factors involved in
complex human traits such as behaviour.

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 Behavioral genetics..

 Behavioral genetics is the study of genetic and environmental influences on behaviors. By examining
genetic influence, more information can be gained about how the environment operates to affect
behavior.
 Much behavioral genetic research today focuses on identifying specific genes that affect behavioral
dimensions, such as personality and intelligence, and disorders, such as autism, hyperactivity,
depression, and schizophrenia.
 Traditional behavioral genetic methods involve the use primarily of family, twin, and adoption
correlations to estimate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences in the
etiology of individual differences.
 There are many broad conclusions to be drawn from behavioural genetic research about the nature
and origins of behaviour: 1) all behavioural traits and disorders are influenced by genes; 2)
environmental influences tend to make members of the same family more different, rather than more
similar; and 3) the influence of genes tends to increase in relative importance as individuals age.

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Thank You