Genetics- the study of patterns of inheritance

Heredity – the passage of traits from parents to offspring.

Gregor Mendel – Austrian monk that is thought of as being the founder of modern genetics. In
1850s and 1860s he researched the inheritance patterns of pea plants in his garden.

One of his 1st experiments- Monohybrid Cross (deals with 1 trait)

Today we know:
Genes (specific sequences of DNA) code for our traits.
Genes are found along specific locations of a chromosome called a locus (loci).
Both of the genes in our example code for the same trait (Pea color), but can occur as alternate
forms of the gene called alleles.

G – yellow g- green

Although Mendel did not know this at the time we now understand that some alleles are
dominant (G) and others are recessive (g) (an allele that is not expressed when a dominant allele
is present) (regarding Mendelian traits)

*Students should learn to complete these four steps in working all crosses
1. Determine Parents, 2. Determine possible sex cells, 3. Cross, 4. Interpret/explain results

Monohybrid cross: Pure breeding yellow parent x pure breeding green

P1: GG x gg What do the pairs of letters represent? Genes occur on chromosomes and
chromosomes occur as pairs (homologous pairs). So this would represent
contents of the parental diploid (2n) cells.

G g Meiosis produces sex cells (haploid). Parents pass on their genes through
these sex cells. These are placed on the outsides of the Punnett square.

F1: As a result yellow offspring (Gg) are produced 100% of the time.
“Where did the green go?”

Gg x Gg Mendel crossed these plants. Yellow parents

G g g Both parents could produce sex cells containing different alleles.

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 *The Punnett square was devised by a British geneticist in 1905, Reginald Crundall Punnett.

F2: G g
GG Gg
G After repeating this cross numerous times Mendel found
g Gg gg on average that 75% of the offspring produced were yellow pea
plants and 25% were green pea plants.

We refer to the physical expression of the trait as the phenotype (ex. yellow or green)
The particular alleles present for a single trait is the genotype. These genotypes may be
Homozygous dominant (GG), Heterozygous (Gg), or Homozygous recessive (gg)

The results of the cross are usually reported as ratios:

Genotypic ratio: 1:2:1 or 1 GG: 2 Gg: 1 gg

Conclusion
Mendel saw that since he could take yellow parents and still obtain yellow and green offspring
then there must be more than 1 “factor” that is controlling for each trait (i.e. one of the alleles
were hidden (recessive).

Results such as these lead to Mendel’s 1st Law, the Law of Segregation- for every trait there are
2 factors (alleles), and these separate and are recombined randomly during inheritance. In other
words, Meiosis separates the alleles and random fertilization allows random recombination.

Today we can use his results to help predict the outcome of similar crosses of Mendelian traits

EXERCISE:
*Students will assume they are all clones (other than sex). They will pair up as parents.
Even though everyone’s a clone, the genetic variation introduced by random fertilization (coin
flipping) attributes to the diversity of offspring that they will produce in today’s activity.
Everyone will be heterozygous for each trait, hence the need to flip a coin to determine which of
the 2 alleles that will be passed on to their offspring.

See manual: Determine sex of the child first then face shape. These traits are not on the chart,
but mentioned on pg. 112 under Procedure #2 and #4.

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 Non-Mendelian traits such as Polygenic traits, Incomplete dominance and Codominance
(pg 109-110): I cover these briefly once the students reach the section of eye, skin, and hair
color of the face activity.

Polygenic traits such as hair, skin, and eye color are encoded for by more than one pair of genes.
This results in continuous variation rather than just two variants (i.e. green or yellow peas).

Incomplete dominance- the heterozygous phenotype will be intermediate between the

Codominance- Both alleles for the trait are equally expressed in the heterozygote. (e.g. A and B
are codominant in ABO blood type in humans, i.e. AB type blood.)

Dihybrid Cross
The two traits Mendel examined in pea plants were pea color and pea shape.
Pea Color G- yellow, g- green
Pea shape: R- round, r-wrinkled

Mendel first crossed a true breeding plant with yellow round peas with a true breeding plant with
green wrinkled peas.

What would the genotype be for these 2 parents? GGRR x ggrr

What gene combinations could these parent plants produce in their sex cells through meiosis?
GGRR  GR, GR, GR, GR (sperm or eggs)
ggrr  gr, gr, gr, gr (sperm or eggs)

After fertilization, the genotype of the zygote would be GgRr with a phenotype of yellow
round peas.

Mendel then crossed these offspring that were heterozygous for both traits
GgRr x GgRr

What gene combinations could these parent plants produce in their sex cells through meiosis?

GR, Gr, gR, gr

How is this possible??? Metaphase I of Meiosis.

Complete the dihybrid cross using a punnett square

Mendel got new phenotype combinations that were not present in either the parental or first filial
generation; green round peas and yellow wrinkled peas.

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 Phenotypic ratio: 9 yellow round, 3 yellow wrinkled, 3 green round, & 1 green wrinkled.

This phenotypic ratio along with the two new combinations led to the development of Mendel’s
second law, The Law of Independent Assortment states the alleles of a gene for one trait will
separate or assort independently from the alleles of a gene for another trait.

How can alleles separate independently? The genes for the two traits are on two different
chromosomes. Do all genes separate independently? No, some genes are linked on a single
chromosome. They are inherited together as a suite of genes.

We now know that not all inheritance follows Mendel’s Laws, there are exceptions such as:
linked genes, incomplete dominance, codominance, polygenes, and more.

Students should practice working the genetics problems in class on pages 123-125.

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