Inheritance (151)

1) Inheritance - What does inheritance in organisms mean? - the traits or characteristics maintained in an offspring received from its parents - inheritance involves reproduction of offspring - What are the two different types of reproduction? a) asexual: one parent; genetically identical to parent - cell division; anemone budding; strawberry runners, etc b) sexual: two parents; genetic mixture from both parents - some organisms can perform both - Is sexual reproduction favorable over asexual reproduction? - sexual reproduction causes a reshuffling of genes among individuals - such shuffling may result in a beneficial combination of different characteristics - an example of this is camouflage and motionless behavior - How are characteristics inherited in multicellular organisms? - contained in the genetic material passed on in gametes - sex cells derived from meiosis - haploid number of chromosomes (one homologue) - gametes fuse during fertilization, creating a new diploid cell - this new diploid cell is called a zygote - two homologues present for each chromosome - matching of new homologues creates changes in characteristics inherited - How were patterns of inheritance first studied? - in pea plants by Gregor Mendel 2) Mendelian Inheritance - Who was Gregor Mendel? - an Austrian monk trained in botany and mathematics - the monastery he worked at is now part of the Czech republic - he tended the garden at his monastery - grew pea plants, and noticed there were several different varieties - performed experiments to determine the inheritance patterns of the characteristics of these different varieties - Why was it so fortuitous that he studied pea plants? - pea plants are true-breeders - pea flowers have both male and female parts

- flowers remain sealed by the petals until after self-fertilization occurs (only one parent) - plants become inbred and are consistently identical to previous generations - Mendel artificially cross-fertilized different varieties - the result is a hybrid variety - hybrids are the offspring of genetically dissimilar parents - he then examined the inheritance patterns of several individual traits - What exactly did Mendel do? - crossed two true-breed varieties of a single trait (flower color) - called the parental generation - observed the result in the hybrid offspring - called the first filial (F1) generation - in the case of every trait he investigated, the offspring only resembled one parent, they did not blend - the trait that was expressed was called dominant - the trait that was not was called recessive - Mendel then self-fertilized the F1 generation - progeny are called the second filial (F2) generation - the recessive trait had returned in some of the F2 progeny - the ratio of dominant to recessive was approximately 3:1 - Mendel then self-fertilized the F2 generation - F3 progeny from recessive (white) flowers were white only - one-third of the dominant (purple) F2 was true-breeders - only purple flower F3 progeny - the remaining dominants exhibited the 3:1 ratio in the F3 progeny - What did Mendel conclude? - that inherited characteristics werent blended together - rather, traits were inherited as discrete packets of information that were either present or absent in a given generation - these factors are now called genes -regions of DNA that encode a particular protein - he also concluded that each individual has two factors present for each trait - one copy from each parent - different forms or versions of the same gene are called alleles - chance determines which copy of a gene a parent will pass down - referred to as Mendels Law of Segregation - the two copies randomly segregate into separate gametes - if the individual has two copies that are the same allele, they are true-

breeders ( can only pass down that allele) - called homozygous (same) - however, if they have two different alleles, the dominant one will be expressed - called heterozygous (different) - although an individual may display a dominant phenotype, if they possess the recessive allele they are considered carriers because they can still pass down the trait - allelic make-up and expression of traits are referred to as an individuals genotype and phenotype, respectively 3) Analyzing Inheritance - How can the genotype and phenotype of the progeny of any particular cross be predicted? - a useful diagram is called the Punnett square - dominant in capitals, recessive in small case - if parental genotype are known, all different combinations of F1 phenotypes and genotypes can be determined - sample squares for flower color, seed color, male and female - What if the genotype of a dominant phenotype is unknown? - genotypes of dominants can be determined by crossing them with a recessive - the recessive has to be homozygous - a homozygous dominant would result in an all-dominant phenotype (heterozygous progeny) - a heterozygous dominant would show a 1:1 ratio - called a test cross - demonstrate with a Punnett square - What if you are looking at more than one trait at a time? - Mendel looked at whether or not other multiple traits affected inheritance patterns - performed dihybrid crosses - F2 progeny showed segregation patterns that behaved as if the traits were examined separately - saw a 9:3:3:1 ratio - Mendel concluded the traits did not influence the inheritance of each other - called Mendels Law of Independent Assortment - a human being can generate over 64 trillion different combinations of

chromosomes when sperm and egg combine during fertilization due to independent assortment - Can you examine more than two independently assorting genes at once? - to analyze these, you can multiply each independently assorting trait - for example, what is the likelihood of obtaining the genotype AabbCcDd from a four-trait hybrid cross (AaBbCcDd x AaBbCcDd)? - multiply 1/4 (AA) by 1/4 (bb) by 2/4 (Cc) by 2/4 (Dd) - a one in 64 chance - this is known as the product rule - Do traits always assort independently? - although Mendel continuously observed independent assortment, this is not always the case - humans possess thousands of genes, but only 23 chromosomes on which to carry them - that means each chromosome must carry many genes - genes present on the same chromosome are said to be linked - because of this, alleles on the same chromosome travel together during the first division of meiosis - therefore there is not an equal likelihood of always generating four possible combinations of alleles during a dihybrid cross - Can all possible allele combinations arise even if genes are linked on the same chromosome? - during meiosis crossing over can occur and reshuffle linked genes 4) Special Cases - Do all inherited traits behave in this fashion? - there are some unique types of inheritance that do differ slightly a) Sex-linked traits - a special set of chromosomes is responsible for determining gender - these are called the sex chromosomes - XX for a female and XY for a male - all other homologous pairs are called autosomes - some genes are carried on the X chromosome, but not the Y - therefore inheritance is influenced by the gender of the progeny - i.e. Drosophila eye color and human color blindness - the inheritance pattern of traits in humans can be outlined using a chart called a pedigree b) Incomplete dominance - some traits are intermediate because neither allele is completely

dominant - snapdragon flowers: red x white = pink c) Co-dominance and multiple allelism - in some cases more than one allele is dominant - one trait can express multiple phenotypes - human blood type is an example (A, B and O) - A and B crosses result in an AB phenotype - demonstrate with a Punnett square - the environment can also play a role in the expression of traits