Chapter 9 – Heredity

Heredity and Inherited Traits: Mendel’s Experiment; Sex determination.

Heredity refers to the transmission of characters from parents to offsprings. An
inherited trait is a particular genetically determined feature that distinguishes a
person from the others for example; attached or free ear lobes in human beings.

Rules for the inheritance of traits:

Mendel’s contribution: The rules for inheritance of traits in human beings are
related to the fact that both mother and father contribute an equal amount of genetic
material i.e. DNA to their offspring. So an offspring will get two versions of that trait
from the two parents. Mendel worked out rules for inheritance of these traits. Gregor
Johann Mendel regarded as the ‘Father of Genetics’ performed his experiments with
garden peas (Pisum sativum) in the garden behind his monastery. He observed a
number of contrasting characters in garden peas and observed their inheritance.

Some important terms

1. Chromosomes are long thread-like structures present in the nucleus of a cell
which contain hereditary information of the cell in the form of genes.

2. DNA is a chemical in the chromosome which carries the traits in a coded form.

3. Gene is the part of a chromosome which controls a specific biological function.

4. Contrasting characters: A pair of visible charactes such as tall and dwarf, white
and violet flowers, round and wrinkled seeds, green and yellow seeds etc.

5. Dominant trait: The character which expresses itself in a (Ft) generation is

dominant trait. Example : Tallness is a dominant character in pea plant.

6. Recessive trait: The character which does not express itself but is present in a
generation is recessive trait. Ex. dwarfism in the pea plant.

7. Homozygous: A condition in which both the genes of same type are present for
example; an organism has both the genes for tallness it is expressed as TT and
genes for dwarfness are written as tt.

8. Heterozygous: A condition in which both the genes are of different types for
example; an organism has genes Tt it means it has a gene for tallness and the other
for dwarfness only tall character is expressed.

9. Genotype: It is genetic make up of an individual for example; A pure tall plant is

expressed as TT and hybrid tall as Tt.
10. Phenotype: It is external appearance of the organism for example; a plant having
Tt composition will appear tall although it has gene for dwarfness.

11. Homologous pair of characters are those in which one member is contributed by
the father and the other member by the mother and both have genes for the same
character at the same position.

• Genetics : Branch of science that deals with Heredity and variation.

• Heredity : It means the transmission of features/ characters/ traits from one
generation to the next generation.
• Variation : The differences among the individuals of a species/population are
called variations.It takes place due to environment changes,crossing over,and
recombination of genes and mutation.
• Genotype: The complete set of genes in an organism’s genome is called
genotype.
• Phenotype: The observable characters in an organism make the phenotype.
Phenotype is a modified genotype and many of the phenotypes cannot be
inherited.
• Clones are those organisms which are exact copies of each other.

Mendel’s Experiment: Mendel started his experiment on the pea plants. He

conducted first monohybrid and then dihybrid crosses.

Mendel and His Work on Inheritance

• Gregor Johann Mendel (1822& 1884) : Started his experiments on plant breeding and
hybridisation. He proposed the laws of inheritance in living organisms.
• Law of Dominance, Law of segregation, Law of Independent Assortment.

Mendel was known as Father of Genetics

• Plant selected by Mendel : Pisumsativum (garden pea). Mendel used a number of
contrasting characters for garden pea.
 • Mendel’s Experiments : Mendel conducted a series of experiments inwhich he
crossed the pollinated plants to study one character (at a time)
Cross between two pea plants with one pair of contrasting characters is called a
monohybridcross.

• Cross between a tall and a draft plant (short).

Phenotypic ratio : 3:1

Genotypic ratio : 1:2:1

Phenotype ® Physical appearance [Tall or Short]

Genotype ® Physical appearance [Tall or short]

Observations of Monohybrid Cross

1. All F1 progeny were tall (no medium height plant (half way characteristic)
 2. F2 progeny ¼ were short, 3/4 were tall

3. Phenotypic ratio F2 – 3 : 1 (3 tall : 1 short)

Genotypic ratio F2 – 1:2:1

Conclusions
1. TT and Tt both are tall plants while tt is a short plant.

2. A single copy of T is enough to make the plant tall, while both copies have to be ‘t’
for the plant to be short.

3. Characters/Traits like ‘T’ are called dominant trait (because it express itself) and ‘t’
are recessive trait (because it remains suppressed)

From these observation, Mendel put forward the rules of inheritance

Law of Segregation: Every individual possesses a pair of alleles for a particular trait.
During gamete formation, a gamete receives only one trait from the alleles. A
particular trait can be dominant or recessive in a particular generation.

Monohybrid Cross: The cross in which Mendel showed inheritance of dominant

and recessive characters is monohybrid cross. To observe inheritance of single pair
of contrasting characters
he took pure tall (genotype TT) and pure dwarf (genotype tt) pea plants and cross
pollinated them to obtain first generation or first filial generation. In this figuration (F1
generation) he obtained only tall plants. This meant that only one of the parental
traits was seen, not the mixture of the two. The plants of F generation or progeny are
then self pollinated to obtain F2 generation or progeny. Now all plants were not tall.
He obtained 75% tall plants and 25% dwarf plants i.e. the phenotypic ratio was 3:1.
This indicates that in the F, generation both tall and dwarf traits were inherited but
tallness expressed it self. Tallness is a dominant trait and dwarfness is a recessive
trait. F2 generation has a genotypic ratio of 1 : 2 : 1 of three types of plants
represented by TT, Tt and tt as shown in the cross.

Conclusion: Phenotypic ratio—Tall : Dwarf 3 : 1

Genotype ratio—Pure Tall : Hybrid Tall : Pure Dwarf 1 : 2 : 1

Law of Dominance: When parents having pure contrasting characters are crossed
then only one character expresses itself in the Ft generation. This character is the
dominant character and the character/factor which cannot express itself is called the
recessive character.

Dihybrid Cross: Mendel also carried out experiments to observe inheritance of two
pairs of contrasting characters, which is called dihybrid cross. He cross breed pea
plants bearing round green seed with plants bearing wrinkled and yellow seeds. In
the Fx generation he obtained all round and yellow seeds it means round and yellow
traits of seeds are dominant features while wrinkled and green are recessive. He
self-pollinated the plants of F: generation to obtain F2 generation, he obtained four
different types of seeds round yellow, round green, wrinkled yellow and wrinkled
green in the ratio of 9 : 3 : 3 : 1. He concluded that traits are independently inherited

Dihybrid Cross : A cross between two plants having two pairs of contrasting
characters is called dihybrid cross.
Phenotypic Ratio
Round, yellow : 9
Round, green : 3
Wrinkled, yellow : 3
Wrinkled, green : 1

Observations
1. When RRyy was crossed with rrYY in F1 generation all were Rr Yy round and yellow
seeds.
2. Self pollination of F plants gave parental phenotype and two mixtures(recombinants
round yellow & wrinkled green) seeds plants in the ratio of 9:3:3:1

Conclusions
1. Round and yellow seeds are DOMINANT characters
2. Occurrence of new phenotypic combinations show that genes for round and
yellow seeds are inherited independently of each other.
Law of Independent Assortment: Alleles of different characters separate independent
from each other during gamete formation.
In the above example,alleles of texture were assorted independently from those of
seed colour.
Conclusion

• Round and yellow seeds-9.

• Round and green seeds-3.
• Wrinkled and yellow seeds-3.
• Wrinkled and green seeds-1.

How do traits get expressed?

Cellular DNA is the information source for making proteins in the cell.
A part of DNA that provides information for one particular protein is called a gene for
that protein for example; the height of a plant depends upon the growth hormone
which is in turn controlled by the gene. If the gene is efficient and more growth
hormone is secreted the plant will grow tall. If the gene for that particular protein gets
altered and less of it is secreted when the plant will remain short. Both the parents
contribute equally to the DNA of next generation during sexual reproduction. They
actually contribute a copy of the same gene for example; when tall plant is crossed
with short plant the gametes will have single gene either for tallness or for shortness.
F1 generation will get one gene for tallness and other for shortness also.

How do germ cells i.e. gametes get single set of genes from parents who have two
copies in them ?
Each gene set is present, not as a single long thread of DNA, but as separate
independent pieces each called a chromosome. Each cell gets two copies of the
chromosome, one from each parent. Each germ cell or gamete has one copy of it
because there is reductional division in the sex organs at the time of formation of
gametes. When fertilization takes place normal number of chromosomes is restored
in the progeny ensuring the stability of DNA of the species.

How is the sex of a newborn individual determined?

It is the process by which sex of a newborn can be determined.

Different species use different strategies for this :

• In some animals the temperature at which fertilized eggs are kept determines
whether the developing animals will be males or females.
• Some animals like snails can change sex indicating that sex is not genetically
determined.
• In human beings sex of the individual is determined genetically; means genes
inherited from the parents decide the sex of the offspring.

Sex determination in human beings: In human beings, all chromosomes are not
paired. 22 chromosomes are paired but one pair called sex chromosome is odd in
not having a perfect pair in males. Females have a perfect pair both represented by
XX. On the other hand males have a normal sized X but the other is short called Y
so it is shown as XY. All gametes or ova formed by the homogenetic female are
similar i.e. have X chromosome. Males heterogenetic form two types of sperms i.e.
half with X chromosome and the other half with Y chromosome. Sex of the baby will
depend on fertilization. There are two possibilities :

Autosomes: Those chromosomes which do not play any role in sex determination.

Sex chromosomes: Those chromosomes which play a role in determining sex of

the newborn.
• If the sperm having X chromosome fertilizes with ovum with X chromosome
then the baby will have XX chromosome and it will be female.
• If the sperm having Y chromosome fertilizes with ovum with X chromosome
then the baby will have XY chromosomes and it will be male.
• SEX DETERMINATION
• Determination of sex of an offspring.
• FACTORS

• Sex Chromosomes :In human beings there are 23 pairs of chromosome. Out
of these 22 chromosomes pairs are called autosomes and the last pair of
chromosome that help in deciding gender of that individual is called sex
chromosome.
• XX – female
XY – male

•
• This shows that half the children will be boys and half will be girls. All children
will inherit an X chromosome from their mother regardless whether they are
boys or girls. Thus sex of children will be determined by what they inherit from
their father, and not from their mother.