Course Code: 241

Botany
Unit 4 : Genetics
Genetic Inheritance and Gene Interaction
Kiran Kurhade
Assistant Professor
SOS, RKU
Content
 Mendelism Vocabulary
 Law’s of Mendel's
 Gene interaction
 Allelic and Non Allelic interaction
Vocabulary
Genetics – The field of biology that investigates how characteristics
are transmitted from parents to offspring is called genetics.
Mendel’s work with pea plants formed the basis of genetics.
His results lead to heredity/ Inheredity.
Heredity-- The transmission of characteristics from parents to
offspring.
Gene : A gene is a part of DNA that contains the instructions that
control a trait.
You have different genes for each of the different traits that you
inherit.
 Trait – specific characteristics – vary from individual to another –
Mendel studied 7 traits in pea plants
 Gametes are always haploid
 Gene – chemical factors that determine a trait
 Allele – different forms of a gene (ex. Gene for hair color – there
are different alleles that determine whether hair will be brown,
blonde, red)
 P generation (or P1) = parental generation
 F1 generation = first generation offspring (from filial)
 F2 generation = second generation offspring
 Hybrid – offspring of crosses between parents with different
characteristics
 Phenotype – external appearance or characteristic of an organism
 Genotype – genetic makeup of an organism, determines phenotype
 Genotypes are either homozygous or heterozygous
 Homozygous Dominant – Both genes for the trait are the same
(BB)
 Homozygous Recessive: Both genes for the trait are the same (bb)
 Heterozygous – The two genes for the trait are different (Bb)
 DOMINANT ALLELES ARE CAPITALIZED; recessive alleles are
lowercase
 Gene – unit of heredity; controls a trait that determines a phenotype
 Locus – the location of a particular gene on a chromosome
 Alleles – alternative versions of a gene
 Dominant – allele that dominates over others in determining
phenotype ( TT, Tt )
 Recessive – allele whose phenotypic expression is “hidden” when a
dominant allele is present (tt)
 Gregor Johann Mendel is known as the “Father of Modern
Genetics” for his discoveries on the basic principles of heredity.
 He conducted breeding experiments with pea plants,
university education
Why pea plants?

 Short generation span and easy to cultivate

 Bisexual flower
 Easy hybridization
 Easy to grow
 Easily distinguishable traits
 Large number of offspring (sample number)
 Carry out both self and cross pollination
Pea Plant Characteristics
 Plant Height - Tall stem or short stem
 Pod Color - Green or Yellow
 Pod Appearance - Inflated or Constricted
 Seed texture - Smooth or Wrinkled
 Seed color - Yellow or Green
 Flower position on stem - Axial (along stem) or Terminal (on top of
stem)
 Flower color - Purple or White
Mendel’s Work

 Mendel collected seeds from pea plants and studied them.

 He then controlled how the plants reproduced.
 He eliminated any possibility that birds, insects, or wind
would carry the pollen.
 He then bred plants that were pure for each trait.
 Pure plants only produced the same trait, for example, tall
plants only produced tall plants
Why Mendel’s Work was successful?

 Kept accurate written records

 Studied one trait at a time
 Conducted controlled experiments
 Used a large sample number
 First to use statistics and probability
Mendel’s Crosses
 Tall stem x short stem
 Green pod x yellow pod
 Inflated pod x constricted pod
 Smooth seed x wrinkled seed
 Yellow seed x green seed
 Axial flower x terminal flower
 Purple flower x white flower
Mendel’s law of Inheritance
 The Law of Dominance, Law of Segregation and Law of
Independent Assortment are the three Mendel’s laws of inheritance.
 These laws came into existence by the experiments on pea plants in
a variety of differing traits.
 Mendel started his research with monohybrid cross.
 Mendel observed that traits which were absent in the F1 generation
had reappeared in the F2 generation.
 These observations led to the formulation of the Law of Dominance
and the Law of Segregation
1. First law of Dominance
 It states that “When parents with pure contrasting traits
are crossed together, only one form of trait appears in
the next generation. The hybrid offspring's will exhibit
only the dominant trait in the phenotype”
Ex : A monohybrid cross between pure tall and
pure dwarf pea plant.

selfing

Tall: Dwarf

TT:Tt:tt
Mendel’s Observations
 All of the plants in the crosses listed are known as parental plants.
 Mendel labelled parental plants P1 Generation.
 The offspring of the P1 Generation are known as the F1 Generation.
 Mendel noticed that all of the plants in the F1 generation displayed
only one of the traits from the P1 generation called dominant trait.
 A trait is a characteristic, or feature of an organism.
 Law of dominance explains that in a monohybrid cross between a
pair of contrasting traits, only one parental character will be
expressed in the F1 generation and both parental characters will be
expressed in the F2 generation in the ratio 3:1.
 The one which expressed in the F1 generation is called the dominant
trait and the one which is suppressed is called recessive trait. In
simple words, the law of dominance states that recessive traits are
always dominated or masked by the dominant trait. This law can be
described by Mendel’s experiment.
 A monohybrid cross is a cross between the two monohybrid traits
(TT and tt). Here plants which have the same characters but differ in
only one character were crossed.
Dominant vs Recessive

 If one parent has genetic material for a dominant trait (TT,

Tt) and the other parent has material for a recessive trait
(tt), the offspring will be dominant.
 An offspring can only be recessive if each parent gives a
recessive trait (tt).
 Recessive forms are only exhibited when the dominant
allele is not present
2. Law of segregation
 It states that “During the formation of gamete, each gene separates
from each other so that each gamete carries only one allele for each
gene”.
 Law of segregation is the second law of inheritance. This law explains
that the pair of alleles segregate from each other during
meiosis cell division (gamete formation) so that only one allele will be
present in each gamete.
 In a monohybrid cross, both the alleles are expressed in the F2
generation without any blending. Thus, the law of segregation is based
on the fact that each gamete contains only one allele.
This law is based on four basic concepts:

1. A gene exists in more than one form of an allele.

2. When gametes are produced by meiosis, the allelic pairs
separate leaving each gamete with a single allele.
3. Every organism inherits two alleles for each trait.
4. The two alleles of a pair are different, i.e., one is
dominant and one is recessive.
3. Law of Independent Assortment

 The law of independent assortment states that the alleles of

different genes are inherited independently within the organisms
that reproduce sexually.
OR
 The Law of Independent Assortment states that during a dihybrid
cross (crossing of two pairs of traits), an assortment of each pair
of traits is independent of the other.
 In other words, during gamete formation, one pair of trait segregates
from another pair of traits independently. This gives each pair of
characters a chance of expression.
Ex : The dihybrid cross between round-yellow
seed and wrinkled green seed
 In the dihybrid cross, he chose round-yellow seed and wrinkled green seed and
crossed them. He obtained only round yellow seeds in the F1 generation. Later,
self-pollination of F1 progeny gave four different combinations of seeds in the
F2 generation. He obtained round-yellow, wrinkled-yellow, round green and
wrinkled green seeds in the phenotypic ratio 9:3:3:1.
 The phenotypic ratio 3:1 of yellow: green colour and the ratio 3:1 of the round:
wrinkled seed shape during monohybrid cross was retained in the dihybrid cross
as well. Thus, he concluded that characters are distributed independently and
inherited independently. Based on this observation, he developed his third law –
Law of Independent Assortment.
 The dihybrid crosses between the parental genotype RRYY (round yellow seeds)
and rryy (green wrinkled seeds) explains the law. Here the chances of formation
of gametes with the gene R and the gene r are 50:50. Also, the chances of
formation of gametes with the gene Y and the gene y are 50:50. Thus, each
gamete should have either R or r and Y or y.
 The Law of Independent Assortment states that the segregation of R and r is
independent of the segregation of Y and y. This results in four types of gametes
RY, Ry, rY, and ry. These combinations of alleles are different from their parental
combination (RR, YY, rr and yy).
 Gene interactions

 Two or more genes interact to produce a novel phenotype

OR
 Gene interactions occur when two or more allelic or non-allelic genes of
same genotype influence the outcome of particular phenotypic
characters. 
OR
 When expression of one gene depends on the presence or absence of
another gene in an individual, it is known as gene interaction.
Gene interaction is of two types

I.Allelic or intragenic interaction : This kind of

interaction occurs between alleles of the same gene pair as in
the case of incomplete dominance, co-dominance and
multiple allelism.
II.Non-allelic or intergenic interactions : These
interactions occur between alleles of different genes present
either on the same or different chromosome and alter the
normal phenotype. Complementary gene interaction,
supplementary gene interaction, duplicate factors and
inhibitory factors are examples of intergenic interactions
I. Allelic or Intragenic gene interactions

Interactions take place between the alleles of the

same gene i.e., alleles at the same locus is called
intragenic or intra locus gene interaction. It includes
the following:
(1) Incomplete dominance
(2) Codominance
(3) Multiple alleles
(4) Pleiotropic genes are common examples for
intragenic interaction.
1. Incomplete dominance – No blending of genes: When one allele is not
completely dominant to another allele it shows incomplete dominance. Such allelic
interaction is known as incomplete dominance
2. Codominance (1 : 2 : 1)

 The phenomenon in which two alleles are both expressed in the

heterozygous individual is known as codominance.
 Example: Red and white flowers of Camellia, inheritance of sickle
cell haemoglobin, ABO blood group system in humanbeings.
 In human beings, IA and IB alleles of I gene are codominant which
follows Mendel's law of segregation. 
3. Lethal genes

 An allele which has the potential to cause the death of

an organism is called a “Lethal Allele”. 
 In 1907, E. Baur reported a lethal gene in snapdragon
(Antirrhinum sp.).
4. Pleiotropy – A single gene affects
multiple traits
 In Pleiotropy, the single gene affects multiple traits and
alter the phenotype of the organism.
 The Pleiotropic gene influences a number of characters
simultaneously and such genes are called pleiotropic gene.
 II. Epistasis
 
 There are two pairs of independent non-allelic genes affecting a
single trait.
 The suppression of the gene on one locus of a chromosome by the
gene present at some other locus is called epistasis meaning
"standing over". The gene which is suppressed is called hypostatic
and the other is the epistatic or inhibiting gene which is also called
the suppressing gene.
 Epistasis can be of the following types.
 Due to recessive gene : Recessive gene a masks the effect of
dominant gene B.
  Due to dominant gene : Dominant gene A masks the effect of the
dominant gene B. Apart from this, the term epistasis refers to all
non-allelic interactions involving a pair of genes.
Epistasis may be responsible for the production of several
modified dihybrid ratios as follows:

 Duplicate recessive epistasis or complementary gene

interaction (9:7)
 Dominant epistasis (12:3:1)
 Recessive epistasis (9:3:4)
 Dominant recessive epistasis (13:3)
 Duplicate dominant epistasis (15:1)
1. Duplicate Recessive Epistasis

 This type of inheritance is also called complementary gene

interaction observed in Lathyrus odoratus (Sweet pea) by
Bateson and Punnett. Inheritance of flower colour was
studied.

 When two pure breeding white flowered varieties of sweet

pea where crossed, the F1 hybrids were all purple flowered
plants. When the F1 hybrids were selfed, purple and white
flowered varieties were produced respectively in the ratio of
9:7.
 
 Explanation

 Here two dominant genes C and P interact to

produce purple color. When any one of the genes is
present in recessive condition, color is not
produced. Thus both the genes in the recessive state
inhibit the formation of purple color and so this has
been referred to as Duplicate recessive epistasis.
Biochemical explanation for production of Flower color

 
 Dominant gene (C) controls the production of a pigment precursor
called chromogen and the dominant gene (P) is responsible for the
production of the enzyme which converts the chromogen into the
pigment anthocyanin which is responsible for the purple color. 

 If gene C is absent there is no formation of chromogen and if gene P

is absent chromogen does not get converted to anthocyanin. Thus
both the genes have to be in dominant state for production of purple
coloured flowers.
2. Dominant Epistasis - 12:3:1
In Cucurbita pepo there are three common fruit colours white,
yellow and green. White colour is produced due to the presence of
dominant gene W. In the absence of W, the dominant gene Y produces
yellow fruit colour and the double recessive is green. The effect of
dominant gene `Y' is masked by dominant gene `W' which is the
epistatic gene so this is called dominant epistasis.

When pure breeding white fruited variety is crossed with the double
recessive green variety, the F1 hybrids are all white. When the hybrids
are selfed, white, yellow and green fruited plants arise respectively in
the ratio of 12:3:1
3. Recessive epistasis or supplementary
gene interaction - 9:3:4
 In Sorghum the dominant gene (P) is responsible for purple colour which is
dominant over brown (q).

 When both the dominant genes (P and Q) are brought together either in
homozygous or heterozygous condition, the purple colour is changed to red.

 A cross between purple (PPqq) and brown (ppQQ) results in plants with red
colour in F1 and when the F1 heterozygotes are self crossed, three kinds of
phenotypic classes are produced in the ratio of 9:3:4 (9 Red, 3 Purple and 4
Brown).

 Thus in this example, the gene `p' is epistatic to the other colour genes.

 If the Sorghum is pp, it is brown inspite of other genotypes. The expression of the

colour genes is masked if pp is present.

 The genes for recessive epistasis are also called supplementary genes because the
gene P determines the formation of colour. The alleles of the other gene Q and q
specify the colour.
Thank you