Mendelian Inheritance is a broad theory of how traits are passed from pa rent to offspring.

To explore Mendelian Inheritance, Drosophila melanogaster, ot herwise known as fruit flies, of different, known traits were mated together so we could observe the traits of their offspring. This way we could observe domi nance in alleles, sex-linked traits, mutations, and other various factors that affect genotype and phenotype in offspring. The first cross mated a female Bar f ruit fly with a male wsn fruit fly. A fly that is characterized as Bar has the g enotype B + +; they have narrow, red stripe-like eyes. A fly that is characteriz ed as wsn has the genotype + W Sn; they have white, round eyes with singed brist les. After crossing these flies together, the female offspring were observed to have red, kidney-shaped eyes and straight hair, while the males were observed to have red, narrow stripe-like eyes. One can see that this was the only possible combination of alleles according to Mendelian Inheritance, in the punnett squar e, the + represent the dominant alleles( Round eyes, Red Eyes, Straight Hair), t he B represents bar eyes, the W represents white eyes, and the Sn represents sin ged hairs. The punnett square for the first cross is diagrammed below. Male Parent Genotype Female Parent Genotype B + + B+ + + W Sn B+ +W +Sn (female) B+ +W +Sn (female) Y B + + (male) B + + (male)

For cross 2, wsn females were mated with bar males. This mating created female f lies that had red, kidney-shaped eyes with straight hairs. The male flies had wh ite, kidney-shaped eyes with singed hairs. Male Parent Genotype Female Parent Genotype + W Sn + W Sn B + + B+ W+ Sn+ (female) B+ W+ Sn+ (female) Y + W Sn (male) + W Sn (male)

From the phenotypes of the two crosses, it was inferred that these traits were not only sex-linked,but the pattern of dominancy in these genes was discovered. We could determine the sex-linked nature because if these alleles were not sex-l

inked then the results from test cross 1 and test cross 2 would have been the sa me. Also, the results for male and female would have the same phenotypic ratio i f it were not sex-linked. Sex-linked allele croses provides results that are bas ed on gender because the way the sex chromosomes come together to form a gender. Female offspring have two X chromosomes, so they get an X from both the mother and the father. Male offspring have one X and one Y chromosome, they get an X ch romosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the father. Male offspring only get one set of X chromosome genes, and because of this they are most likely to express a recessive sek-linked gene than female offspring. Due to the fact that the female parents in both crosses were homozygous for different traits and the male offspring always displayed the phenotype of the mother while the female off spring didn t, one could further prove the sex-linked characteristic of these genes. These alleles show a pattern of complete dominance in all the genes but eye sha pe. When alleles were heterozygous, they only mixed or made a hybrid phenotype in eye shape. Cross 3 mated the male flies from cross 2 (+ W Sn) with the females from cross 2 (B+ W+ Sn+). Cross 3 provided a large variation in alle les for the male because the female parents were heterozygous for their trait. T his heterozygous nature allowed for more mixes of alleles in the genes of the eg gs. During meiosis, the process for the creation of gametes for reproduction, th ere are various processes that mix the various alleles of genes found on the chr omosome. For example, during prophase I of meiosis crossing over occurs which sw itches alleles for the same on homologous chromosomes, allowing for greater gen etic diversity. During Metaphase I when the homologs line up at the metaphase pl ate, there is more genertic diversity because of independent assortment. Indepen dent assortment causes random alleles in gametes. Random fertilization, or the r andomness of the sperm that reaches the egg and the randomness of the egg it fer tilizes, allows for genetic diversity as does the law of segregation. The data t ells us these alleles seem not to show characteristics of pleiotropy. Every alle le had the capability to be expressed with every other allele. The females didn t sh ow as much variability because they get two sets of genes, allowing for a domina nt allele to mask a recessive allele, or show incomplete dominance with another allele.

Phenotype +++ 116 B++ 179 +WSn 114 BWSn 12 BW+ 11 ++Sn 40 B+Sn 24 +W+ 58 Total 554

# of flies

With the results from cross 3, we can create a genetic map to show how the genes are spaced in relation to one another on the x chromosomes (in terms of map uni ts). This is because the male flies showed all the possible mixes of traits , an d we counted how many flies showed those traits. The genetic map helps to exempl ify the fact that the genes that are further apart are more susceptible to cross ing over such as Sn and B. B is most likely to be crossed over since it s so far fro m the rest of the genes.

Genteic Map: