Topic four: Genes and Heredity

Lesson one: Patterns of inheritance

• Like all other
organisms pass
their traits to their
offspring. To better
understand
heredity, the
passing of traits
from parents to
• offspring.
A trait, as related to
genetics, is a specific
characteristic of an
individual.
• A characteristic, a
special quality or
appearance that
makes an individual
or group different
Mendel’s Experiments

• When Mendel cross-pollinated, or crossed, a tall plant with

• Mendel’s studies became
a short one, all of the offspring were tall. The tall plant and
some of the most important
short plant that were crossed are called the parent plants,
in biology because he was
or P generation. The offspring are called the F1, or first filial
one of the first to quantify
his results. He collected, generation. The term filial originates from the Latin
recorded, and analyzed terms filius and filia, which mean “son” and “daughter,”
data from the thousands of respectively.
tests that he ran.
• Mendel examined several traits of pea plants. Through his
• The experiments Mendel experimentation, he realized that certain patterns formed.
performed involved When a plant with green peas was crossed with one with
transferring the male flower yellow peas, all of the F1 offspring were yellow. However,
part of a pea plant to the when he crossed these offspring, creating what is called
female flower part to get a the second filial generation, or F2, the resulting offspring
desired trait. Mendel were not all yellow. For every four offspring, three were
wanted to see what would yellow and one was green. This pattern of inheritance
happen with pea plants appeared repeatedly when Mendel tested other traits.
when he crossed different Mendel concluded that while only one form of the trait is
traits: short and tall, yellow visible in F1, in F2 the missing trait sometimes shows itself.
seeds and green seeds, and
so on. Because of his
detailed work with heredity,
 Trait Dominant Recessive
seed shape round wrinkled
seed color yellow green
pod color green yellow
flower color purple white
pod position on stem side of stem top of stem

1) Apply Mendel's Experiment

 F1 will be 100% Yellow and F2 will be 75%
will be yellow and 25% will be green
Genes and alleles

Alleles are the different forms of a gene. Pea plants have one gene that controls the
color of the seeds. This gene may express itself as being either yellow or green through
a combination of yellow alleles and green alleles. When crossed, each parent donates
one of its alleles for seed color to the offspring. The allele that each parent donates is
random. An offspring’s seed color is determined by the combination of both alleles.

An organism’s traits are controlled by the alleles it

inherits. A dominant allele is one whose trait always shows
up in the organism when the allele is present. A
recessive allele, on the other hand, is hidden whenever the
dominant allele is present. If one parent donates a
dominant allele and the other donates a recessive allele,
only the dominant trait will be expressed.
Writing alleles

• The traits we see are present because of the combination

of alleles. Pea color is the gene, while the combinations of
alleles determines how the gene will be expressed. To
represent this, scientists who study patterns of
inheritance, called geneticists, use letters to represent
the alleles. A dominant allele is represented with a capital
letter (G) and a recessive allele with a lowercase letter
(g).

• When an organism has two of the same alleles for a trait,

it is called a purebred. This would be represented as GG
or gg. When the organism has one dominant allele and
one recessive allele, it is called a hybrid. This would be
represented as Gg. Remember that each trait is
represented by two alleles, one from the mother and one
from the father. Depending upon which alleles are
inherited, the offspring may be a purebred or a hybrid.

•
Making a Punnett Square

• To determine the probability(is a number that

describes how likely it is that event will occur) of
inheriting alleles, geneticists use a tool called a
Punnett square. To construct a Punnett square, it
is important to know what trait is being
considered and whether the parents are
purebred or hybrid.

• The following steps demonstrate how to use a

Punnett square to calculate the probability of
offspring having different combinations of
alleles. The example describes the procedure for
a cross between two hybrid parents; however,
this procedure will work for any cross.
 1. Draw a square 3. Do the cross! Inside
box divided into four each box, combine the
square parts. letter at the top of the
column with the letter to
the left of the row the box
is in. Always write a
2. Determine the dominant allele before a
alleles of each of the recessive allele.
parents. You know that they
are both hybrids, so they 4. Determine the likelihood of different
have one dominant allele combinations of alleles. As you can see from the
(represented as a capital Punnett square, the combination GG occurs 1/4 of
letter) and one recessive the time, the combination Gg occurs 2/4, or 1/2 of
One parent’s alleles allele (represented as a the time, and the combination gg occurs 1/4 of the
go on top and the
other parent’s lowercase letter). Place one time.
alleles go on the set of alleles on top of the 5. Determine which trait is expressed for each
left. columns of the box, and combination of alleles. In this example, the
one set of alleles next to combination GG and Gg result in the dominant
the rows of the box, as yellow seed color, while the combination gg results
shown. in the green seed color. Therefore, the dominant
allele will be expressed 3/4 of the time. This
matches the results of Mendel’s experiments.
 Genotypes and Phenotypes

• You are already familiar with the

terms purebred and hybrid. These terms refer to genotype,
an organism’s genetic makeup or combination of alleles the
genotype of a purebred green seed pea plant would be gg.
Both alleles are the same (purebred) and they are recessive
because green is the recessive trait in terms of seed color.
The hybrid genotype for this trait would be Gg.
• The expression of an organism’s genes is called its
phenotype, the organism’s physical appearance or visible
traits. The height, the shape, the color, the size, the texture
—whatever trait is being expressed, is referred to as the
phenotype. So, a pea plant with the phenotype of yellow
seed color could have two possible genotypes, GG or Gg.
There are two other terms geneticists use to describe
genotypes. Instead of saying purebred, they refer to an
organism with two identical alleles as homozygous
(homo-means “the same”). When the alleles are both
dominant, as in the yellow seed plant (GG), the
genotype is called homozygous dominant. However,
when the alleles are both recessive, as in the green
seed color (gg), the genotype is called homozygous
recessive. When an organism is a hybrid, as in yellow
seed color (Gg), the genotype is called the
heterozygous condition (hetero- means “different”).