Course Title

• General Genetics
• Genetics

• Scientific study of genes

• Heredity
• How certain qualities or traits are
passed from parents to offspring as a
result of changes in DNA sequence.
• A gene is a

• segment of DNA that contains instructions for

building one or more molecules that help the
body work.
• Genetics is the study of how different
qualities, called traits, are passed
down from parents to child.
• Genetics helps explain what makes
you unique, why family members look
alike, and why some diseases run in
families.
• Genes are made up of DNA.

• Some genes act as instructions to

make molecules called proteins.
• However, many genes do not code for
proteins.

• In humans, genes vary in size from a few

hundred DNA bases to more than 2
million bases.
• Understanding genetic factors and genetic
disorders is important in learning more
about promoting health and preventing
disease.
• Some genetic changes have been
associated with an increased risk of
having a child with a birth defect or
developmental disability or developing
diseases such as cancer or heart disease.
• Genes are a set of instructions
that determine what the organism is
like, its appearance, how it survives,
andhow it behaves in its environment.
• Genes are made of a substance called
deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.
• They give instructions for a living being to
make molecules called proteins.
• Like many great artists, the work
of Gregor Mendel was not
appreciated until after his death.
He is now called the "Father of
Genetics,"
• Genes are segments of
deoxyribonucleic acid(DNA) that
contain the code for a specific
protein that functions in one or
more types of cells in the body.
• Chromosomes are structures
within cells that contain a person's
genes.
• Genes are contained in
chromosomes, which are in the
cell nucleus
• Chromosomes are thread-like structures
located inside the nucleus of animal and plant
cells. Each chromosome is made of protein
and a molecule of deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA). Passed from parents to offspring,
DNA contains the specific instructions that
make each type of living creature unique.
• The first 22 pairs of chromosomes are
called autosomes. The 23rd pair of
chromosomes are known as the sex
chromosomes, because they decide if
you will be born male or female. Females
have two X chromosomes, while males
have one X and one Y chromosome.
• DNA is made up of millions of small
chemicals called bases. The chemicals
come in four types A, C, T and G. A gene
is a section of DNA made up of a
sequence of A, C, T and G. Your genes
are so tiny you have around 20,000 of
them inside every cell in your body!
Your genome is inherited from your
parents, half from your mother and
half from your father.
• In humans, genes vary in size from a few
hundred DNA bases to more than 2 million
bases. An international research effort
called the Human Genome Project, which
worked to determine the sequence of the
human genome and identify the genes that
it contains, estimated that humans
have between 20,000 and 25,000 genes.
• All present research in genetics can be
traced back to Mendel's discovery of the
laws governing the inheritance of traits.
The word genetics was introduced in 1905
by English biologist William Bateson, who
was one of the discoverers of Mendel's
work and who became a champion of
Mendel's principles of inheritance.
• Gregor Mendel, through his work on pea
plants, discovered the fundamental laws of
inheritance. He deduced that genes come
in pairs and are inherited as distinct units,
one from each parent. Mendel tracked the
segregation of parental genes and their
appearance in the offspring as dominant
or recessive traits
 Mendels Law of inheritance
• Gregor Mendel, through his work on pea
plants, discovered the fundamental laws of
inheritance. He deduced that genes come in
pairs and are inherited as distinct units, one
from each parent. Mendel tracked the
segregation of parental genes and their
appearance in the offspring as dominant or
recessive traits.
• 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.
• Between 1856-1863, Mendel conducted the
hybridization experiments on the garden peas.
During that period, he choose 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.
• 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 conducted 2 main experiments to determine
the laws of inheritance. These experiments were:
• Monohybrid Cross Experiment
• Dihybrid Cross Experiment
• While experimenting, Mendel found that certain
factors were always being transferred down to the
offspring in a stable way. Those factors are now
called genes i.e. genes can be called the units of
inheritance.
• 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 mentioned
inheritance laws. A brief explanation of the
two experiments is given below.
• Monohybrid Cross
• In this experiment, Mendel took two pea
plants of opposite traits (one short and one
tall) and crossed them. He found the first
generation offsprings 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.
• 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 F1 progeny and
obtained 4 different traits wrinkled-yellow,
round-yellow, wrinkled-green seeds and
round-green in the ratio 9:3:3:1
• Conclusions from Mendel’s Experiments
• The genetic makeup of the plant is known as
the genotype. On the contrary, the physical
appearance of the plant is known as
phenotype
• The genes are transferred from parents to the
offsprings in pairs known as allele.
• During gametogenesis when the
chromosomes are halved, there is a 50%
chance of one of the two alleles to fuse with
the other parent.
• When the alleles are the same, they are
known as homozygous alleles and when the
alleles are different they are known as
heterozygous alleles.
• the law of segregation; during gamete
formation each member of the allelic pair
separates from the other member
• The law of inheritance was proposed by
Gregor Mendel after conducting experiments
on pea plants for seven years. The Mendel's
laws of inheritance include law of dominance,
law of segregation and law of independent
assortment.
• The Mendel's four postulates and laws of
inheritance are: (1) Principles of Paired Factors
(2) Principle of Dominance(3) Law of
Segregation or Law of Purity of Gametes
(Mendel's First Law of Inheritance) and (4)
Law of Independent Assortment (Mendel's
Second Law of Inheritance).
• The Principle of Independent
Assortment describes how different genes
independently separate from one another when
reproductive cells develop