BIOLOGY FOR ENGINEERS [BS301]
MODULE3- GENETICS
• Mendel’s laws
• Concept of allele.
• Concept of segregation and independent assortment.
• Gene mapping, Gene interaction.
• Epistasis.
• Meiosis and Mitosis be taught as a part of genetics.
• Emphasis to be give not to the mechanics of cell division nor the
phases but how genetic material passes from parent to offspring.
• Concepts of recessiveness and dominance.
• Concept of mapping of phenotype to genes. Discuss about the single
gene disorders in humans. Discuss the concept of complementation
using human genetics.
VARIOUS GENETIC TERMINOLOGIES
• Inheritance
• Alleles
• Gamete
• Trait
• Phenotype
• Genotype
• Self Pollination
• Cross-pollination/ Artificial pollination
CONCEPT OF INHERITANCE & ALLELE
• Inheritance can be defined as the process of how a child receives genetic information from the
parent.
• The whole process of heredity is dependent upon inheritance and it is the reason that the offsprings
are similar to the parents.
• This simply means that due to inheritance, the members of the same family possess similar
characteristics.
• It was only during the mid 19th century that people started to understand inheritance in a proper
way.
• This understanding of inheritance was made possible by a scientist named Gregor Mendel,
who formulated certain laws to understand inheritance known as Mendel’s laws of inheritance.
• An allele is one of a pair of genes that appear at a particular location on a particular
chromosome and control the same characteristic.
• Blood group or Color blindness.
• Alleles are also called alleleomorphs.
• Your blood type is determined by the alleles you inherited from your parents.
VARIOUS GENETIC TERMINOLOGIES
• Gamete – A mature haploid male or female germ cell which is
able to unite with another of the opposite sex in sexual
reproduction to form a zygote.
• Phenotype - the set of observable characteristics of an individual
resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment.
• Genotype - the genetic constitution of an individual organism.
• Trait - A trait is a specific characteristic of an organism.
• Self Pollination - the transfer of pollen from the anther of a
flower to the stigma of the same flower or sometimes to that of a
genetically identical flower.
• Cross-pollination/ Artificial pollination - Cross-pollination
is the process of applying pollen from one flower to the pistils of
another flower. Pollination occurs in nature with the help of insects
and wind.
MENDEL’S EXPERIMENT
• Between 1856-1863, Mendel conducted the hybridization experiments on the garden peas.
• During that period, he chose some distinct characteristics of the peas and conducted some
cross-pollination/ artificial pollination on the pea lines that showed stable trait
inheritance and underwent continuous self-pollination.
• Such pea lines are called true-breeding pea lines.
• Mendel’s Experiments
• Mendel experimented on a pea plant and considered 7 main contrasting traits in the plants.
• Then, he conducted both the experiments to determine the aforementioned inheritance
laws.
MENDEL’S EXPERIMENT
•Monohybrid Cross
• Mendel took two pea plants of opposite traits (one short and one tall) and crossed them.
• He found the first generation offspring were tall and called it F1 progeny.
• Then he crossed F1 progeny and obtained both tall and short plants in the ratio 3:1.
• Mendel even conducted this experiment with other contrasting traits like green peas vs
yellow peas, round vs wrinkled, etc. In all the cases, he found that the results were
similar. From this, he formulated the laws of Segregation And Dominance.
MENDEL’S EXPERIMENT
• Dihybrid Cross
• In a dihybrid cross experiment,
Mendel considered two traits, each
having two alleles.
• He crossed wrinkled-green seed and
round-yellow seeds and observed that
all the first generation progeny (F1
progeny) were round-yellow.
• This meant that dominant traits were
the round shape and yellow colour.
• He then self-pollinated the F2 progeny
and obtained 4 different traits
round-yellow, round-green,
wrinkled-yellow and
wrinkled-green seeds in the ratio
9:3:3:1.
WHY WAS PEA PLANT SELECTED FOR
MENDEL’S EXPERIMENTS?
• He selected a pea plant for his experiments:
• The pea plant can be easily grown and maintained.
• They are naturally self-pollinating but can also be
cross-pollinated.
• It is an annual plant, therefore, many generations
can be studied within a short period of time.
• It has several contrasting characters.
MENDEL’S LAW
• The two experiments lead to the formulation of Mendel’s laws known as laws of inheritance which are:
• Law of Dominance, Law of Segregation, Law of Independent Assortment
• Law of Dominance/ Mendel’s first law of inheritance
• According to the law of dominance, hybrid offspring will only inherit the dominant trait in the phenotype.
• The alleles that are suppressed are called as the recessive traits while the alleles that determine the trait are
known as the dormant traits.
• Law of Segregation
• The law of segregation states that during the production of gametes, two copies of each hereditary factor
segregate so that offspring acquire one factor from each parent.
• In other words, allele (alternative form of the gene) pairs segregate during the formation of gamete and
re-unite randomly during fertilization.
• Law of Independent Assortment/ Mendel’s second law of inheritance: A pair of trait segregates
independently of another pair during gamete formation. As the individual heredity factors assort
independently, different traits get equal opportunity to occur together.
GENE MAPPING
• Gene mapping describes the methods used to identify the locus of a gene and the
distances between genes.
• The essence of all genome mapping is to place a collection of molecular markers
onto their respective positions on the genome.
• Genome represents the complete hereditary information of an organism encoded in its
DNA. Genome comprises both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA.
• Molecular markers come in all forms.
• Features of Gene Mapping:
• Genetic techniques include cross-breeding experiments
• Case of humans, the examination of family histories (pedigrees).
VARIOUS DEFINITIONS
• Genetic interaction:
• Genetic interaction networks represent the functional interactions between pairs of genes in
an organism and are useful for understanding the relation between genotype and phenotype.
• Segregation:
• The law of segregation states that the two alleles of a single trait will separate randomly, meaning that there is a
50% either allele will end up in either gamete.
• Independent assortment:
• The law of independent assortment states that the allele of one gene separates independently of an allele of
another gene.
• Epistasis Definition:
• “Interaction between genes which determine a phenotype”
• Epistasis is having the impact on a gene mutation.
• Consequently, the epistatic mutations have various effects on their own than when it occurs together.
• Epistasis particularly is used to indicate that the effect of gene variant gets masked by other genes.
TYPES OF EPISTASIS
• Types of Epistasis
• Epistasis gene interactions are of 6 types
• Dominant
• Recessive
• Polymeric gene interaction
• Dominant inhibitory
• Duplicate recessive
• Duplicate dominant
CELL DIVISION
• Cell division happens when a parent cell divides into two or
more cells called daughter cells.
• Cell division usually occurs as part of a larger cell cycle. All
cells reproduce by splitting into two, where each parental cell
gives rise to two daughter cells.
• Types of Cell Division
• There are two distinct types of cell division out of which the
first one is vegetative division, wherein each daughter cell
duplicates the parent cell called mitosis.
• The second one is meiosis, which divides into four haploid
daughter cells.
• Mitosis: The process cells use to make exact replicas of
themselves. Mitosis is observed in almost all the body’s cells,
including eyes, skin, hair, and muscle cells.
• Meiosis: In this type of cell division, sperm or egg cells are
produced instead of identical daughter cells as in mitosis.
• Binary Fission: Single-celled organisms like bacteria replicate
themselves for reproduction.
•
CELL DIVISION
• Phases of the Cell Cycle
• Interphase: This phase was thought to represent the resting stage
between subsequent cell divisions, but new research has shown that it
is a very active phase.
• M Phase (Mitosis phase): This is where the actual cell division
occurs. There are two key steps in this phase, namely cytokinesis
and karyokinesis.
• The interphase further comprises following phases:
• G0 Phase (Resting Phase): The cell neither divides nor prepares
itself for the division.
• The cells that do not undergo further division exits the G1 phase and
enters an inactive stage. This stage is known as the quiescent stage
(G0) of the cell cycle.
• G1 Phase (Gap 1): The cell is metabolically active and grows
continuously during this phase.
• S phase (Synthesis): The DNA replication or synthesis occurs
during this stage.
• G2 phase (Gap 2): Protein synthesis happens in this phase.
• There are four stages in the M Phase, namely:
• Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase
MEIOSIS
• What is Meiosis?
• “Meiosis is the type of cell division that results in four daughter cells, each
with half the number of chromosomes of the parent cell.”
• Meiosis is the process in which a single cell divides twice to form four
haploid daughter cells. These cells are the gametes – sperms in males and egg
in females. The process of meiosis is divided into 2 stages. Each stage is
subdivided into several phases.
• Meiosis I: Prophase I, Metaphase I, Anaphase I, Telophase I, Cytokinesis I
• Meiosis II: Prophase II, Metaphase II, Anaphase II, Telophase II, Cytokinesis
II
STAGES OF MEIOSIS
• Meiosis I, Prophase I
• The nuclear envelope disintegrates. Chromosomes begin to condense. Spindle fibres appear.
• Prometaphase I: Spindle fibres attach to the chromosomes at the centromere.
• Metaphase I: The homologous chromosomes align at the equatorial plate ensuring genetic diversity
among offspring.
• Anaphase I: The homologous chromosomes are pulled towards the opposite poles.
• Telophase I: Spindle fibres disappear. Nuclear envelope is reformed.
• Cytokinesis I: The cytoplasm and the cell division resulting in 2 non-identical diploid daughter cells.
• Meiosis II
• Prophase II: The chromatin condenses into chromosomes. Nuclear envelope disintegrates.
Centrosomes migrate to either poles. Spindle fibres are reformed.
• Metaphase II: The chromosomes align along the equatorial plate. On the contrary, the chromosomes
in metaphase I were in homologous pairs.
• Anaphase II: Sister chromatids are pulled to the opposite poles.
• Telophase II: Nuclear envelope redevelops and the spindle fibres disappear.
• Cytokinesis II: The cytoplasm and cell divides producing 4 non-identical haploid daughter cells.
CONCEPTS OF RECESSIVENESS AND DOMINANCE
• Recessiveness, in genetics, the failure of one of a pair of genes (alleles) present in an individual to
express itself in an observable manner because of the greater influence, or dominance, of its
opposite-acting partner.
• Dominance is a relationship between two alleles of a gene and their associated phenotypes. A
"dominant" allele is dominant to a particular allele of the same gene that can be inferred from the
context, but it may be recessive to a third allele, and codominant to a fourth.
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