Mendelian Genetics

Mendels experiments :
Hypothesis: Natural laws follow mathematical regularity.
To uncover these laws, he realized that he would need to carry out
quantitative experiments in which the numbers of offspring carrying
certain traits were carefully recorded and analyzed.

Study organism: Garden pea, Pisum sativum

Advantages: Several properties of this species were particularly
advantageous for studying plant hybridization.
1. The species was available in several varieties that had decisively
different physical characteristics. Many strains of the garden pea were
available that varied in the appearance of their height, flowers, seeds,
and pods.
2. The ease of making crosses.
Self fertilization
Cross- fertilization

 Methodology:
Selected Two variants or traits of a character, performed
hybridization of these traits using true-breeding lines and
check the number of progenies with a particular trait.
A variety that continues to produce the same trait after several
generations of self-fertilization is called a true-breeding line, or strain.

He selected 7 characters
Mendel studied these characters by crossing the variants to
each other. A cross in which an experimenter is observing only
one character is called a monohybrid cross, also called a
single-factor cross.
When the two parents are different variants for a given
character, this type of cross produces single-character
hybrids, also known as monohybrids.
Mendel Followed the Outcome of a Single Character for Two
Generations

 Mendels proposals:

His first proposal was that the variant for one character is
dominant over another variant.
The term recessive is used to describe a variant that is masked by the
presence of a dominant trait but reappears in subsequent generations.
When a true-breeding plant with a dominant trait was crossed to a truebreeding plant with a recessive trait, the dominant trait was always
observed in the F1 generation.
In the F2 generation, some offspring displayed the dominant trait, while
a smaller proportion showed the recessive trait.

Second proposalthe genetic determinants of traits are passed

along as unit factors from generation to generation.
In F1 generation the recessive trait was masked by the presence of
dominant, in the F2 it reappeared without any change or blending.

Third proposal the factors segregate from each other during

the process that gives rise to gametes
When Mendel compared the numbers of dominant and recessive traits in
the F2 generation, he noticed a recurring pattern. Within experimental
variation, he always observed approximately a 3:1 ratio between the
dominant trait and the recessive trait.

 Mendels law of segregation

states that:
The two copies of a gene segregate (or
separate) from each other during
transmission from parent to offspring.
Therefore, only one copy of each gene is
found in a gamete. At fertilization, two
gametes combine randomly, potentially
producing different allelic combinations.
When an individual possesses two
identical copies of a gene, the individual
is said to be homozygous with respect
to that gene. So the P generation was
homozygous
The term genotype refers to the genetic
composition of an individual. TT and tt
are the genotypes of the P -generation
in this experiment.
F1 generation is heterozygous, with the
genotype Tt, because every individual
carries one copy of the tall allele and
one copy of the dwarf allele.
Although these plants are heterozygous,
their phenotypes are tall because they
have a copy of the dominant tall allele.