Genetically Correct Genetics By Erin Phifer and Nick Potter
The “Father Of Genetics” is most known to be Gregor Mendel. Some observations that Gregor Mendel made has to deal with pea plants. Questions he would often ask himself were along the lines of how did the flowers obtain different colors. He bred separate colored flowers to see what would come about from the different offspring produced by the interbreeding. As he kept going with his experiments on plant breeding, he kept rather straightforward records. As the years went by, he noticed that, into the crossbreeding of the plants, repeating patterns in the colors would occur. For the outcomes of the crossbreeding, he had started to use statistics to help predict them.
For example, if you were to look at a gene for eye color, represented by the letter b (for blue). So b would be an allele, B (for brown) would be an allele, and they could be represented by versions such as bb, Bb, or BB. This depends on the variation of the trait. With each allele, they have the ability to either become recessive or dominant. Even with a recessive allele present, the dominant allele will always “overpower” it. Dominant alleles are always represented by capital letters. Recessive alleles are always represented by lowercase letters.
Homozygous is a gene that has two of the same types of alleles, BB or bb. Heterozygous is a gene that has one of each form of the alleles-Bb. Genotype is an organism's genotype that describes the different instances of alleles and genes and is the genetic makeup of an organism. This happens to what is present in its chromosomes. Phenotype is a person's physical trait expressed from their genotype. Monohybrid is a type of crossbreeding that ends with one specific trait. Dihybrid is a type of crossbreeding that ends with two traits.
As the experiments went on, Mendel began to notice that, in plant breeding, sometimes a trait tended to disappear in certain generations of offspring. Mendel’s Principle of Dominance Recessive traits can show up once again within a generation if they are intertwined with another recessive form of it.
Step 1: First thing to do is identify your genotype. As said above, we have a homozygous dominant male and a heterozygous female. Considering that the male is homozygous dominant, his genotype will be BB. Considering that the female is heterozygous, her genotype will be Tt. Step 2: You need to set up your square. Along the top of the squares, you will have one parent’s genotype, and along the left side, you will have the other parent’s genotype. Step 3: Fill in your squares. The father’s alleles will each move down into each of the columns beneath them. The mother’s alleles will move across into each column beside them. Step 4: You need to determine your genotypic and phenotypic probability determined by the results in your Punnett square. Offspring Genotypes: 50% BB. 2 out of 4 would be homozygous dominant. 50% Tt. 2 out of 4 would be heterozygous dominant. Offspring Phenotypes: 100% will have blue eyes, none of the potential offspring will have brown eyes.
Many of the traits we acquire are manipulated by many different version of the same or similar gene. An example of this happening is the different skin tones that we have that vary from extremely pale skin tones, to extremely dark skin tones. When changing phenotypes occur, different sections of a gene become inactive or active. This ends up producing a phenotype change. Epigenome- this is the “outer layer” of the genetic information around your DNA. This serves is similar to a punctuation mark in everyone’s genetic code. It allows the expression of traits and allows your genetic information to be “read” in a less difficult manor. Your epigenome controls the output of your traits through the “punctuation” marks. This actually allows for specific phenotypes to change and to be expressed over periods of time.
All inherited traits are not 100% exactly one particular phenotype of another. This example deals with eye color: some people have completely brown, blue, green, or grey eyes. Some people even have a mixture of colors within their eyes. Incomplete Dominance within a blended form, multiple phenotypes are expressed. This is an intermediate pattern of inheritance. Multiple dominant genes are present and all of them show equally.
Genome- located on chromosomes. Humans have 46 chromosome:s 2 chromosomes are sex chromosomes and 44 are autosomes. Certain diseases and/or disorders are passed down to a generation autosomes, and the others are passed through sex chromosomes. The disease will only be passed down if the genotypes are both dominant, or possibly having a recessive genotype.
Carrier is someone who has a copy of the affected allele, but it is a recessive trait. This trait, however, will not be noticeable to the organism. The image on the left predicts that the organism will have a 50% chance of being affected but will have a recessive trait of being non-affected, and a 50% of being non-affected. The image on the right predicts that there is a 25% chance of the organism having a dominant affectedness, a 50% chance of being affected but being a carrier of being normal, and a 25% chance of being normal/un-affected.
A sex-Linked Trait is a trait that is passed on to the offspring by the parents XX or XY chromosomes. Males have XY chromosomes. Females have XX chromosomes. Females can only pass X chromosomes, but males can pass along both X and Y chromosomes. The male determines the sex of the baby. There is a 50% chance that the sex of the baby will be a female and there is a 50% chance that the sex of the baby will be a male.
There are 4 blood types: A (positive or negative), B (positive or negative), AB (positive or negative), and O (positive or negative). Blood types are determined by proteins that are on the surface of the red blood cells. One blood type cannot intermix with other blood types.If someone were to give blood, they would need to have the same blood type as the person it will be given to. Rhesus factor (Rh factor) is a type of protein that can either be positive or negative and it can be found in every blood type.
Karyotype is the profile of a person's chromosomes. Our chromosomes are put in order by scientists in order to help identify any genetic deformities or mutations.
Pedigree charts are used to track generations in families. They show specific traits that are common within the family. The chart shows that males are represented as squares and females are represented by circles. Shapes that are filled in, are represented as affected by the trait. The numerals on the sides represents the generations in order from oldest to youngest. Vertical lines represents the couples/partners/married couple and horizontal line represents the offspring.