Mendel worked with crossed pea plants that differed in two characters, as is seen in the cross between a pea plant that has seeds with yellow colour and round shape and one that had seeds of green colour and wrinkled shape. Mendel found that the seeds resulting from the crossing of the parents had yellow colored and round shaped seeds. Here can you tell which of the characters in the pairs yellow green colour and round/wrinkled shape was dominant? Thus, yellow colour was dominant over green and round shape dominant over wrinkled. These results were identical to those that he got when he made separate monohybrid crosses between yellow and green seeded plants and between round and wrinkled seeded plants. Let us use the genotypic symbols Y for dominant yellow seed colour and y for recessive green seed colour, R for round shaped seeds and r for wrinkled seed shape. The genotype’of the parents can then be written as RRYY and rryy. The cross between the two plants can be written down as showing the genotypes of the parent plants. The gametes RY and ry unite on fertilisation to produce the F, hybrid RrYy. When Mendel self hybridised the F, plants he found that 3/4th of F, plants had yellow seeds and 1/4th had green. The yellow and green colour segregated in a 3:1 ratio. Round and wrinkled seed shape also segregated in a 3:1 ratio; just like in a monohybrid cross.
Law of Independent Assortment
In the dihybrid cross, the phenotypes round, yellow; wrinkled, yellow; round, green and wrinkled, green appeared in the ratio 9:3:3:1. Such a ratio was observed for several pairs of characters that Mendel studied. The ratio of 9:3:3:1 can be derived as a combination series of 3 yellow: 1 green, with 3 round : 1 wrinkled. This derivation can be written as follows: (3 Round : 1 Wrinkled) (3 Yellow : 1 Green) = 9 Round, Yellow : 3 Wrinkled, Yellow: 3 Round, Green : 1 Wrinkled, Green Based upon such observations on dihybrid crosses (crosses between plants differing in two traits) Mendel proposed a second set of generalizations that we call Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment. The law states that ‘when two pairs of traits are combined in a hybrid, segregation of one pair of characters is independent of the other pair of characters’. The Punnett square can be effectively used to understand the independent segregation of the two pairs of genes during meiosis and the production of eggs and pollen in the F, RrYy plant. Consider the segregation of one pair of genes R and r. Fifty per cent of the gametes have the gene R and the other 50 per cent have r. Now besides each gamete having either R orr, it should also have the allele Y or y. The important thing to remember here is that segregation of 50 per cent R and 50 per cent r is independent from the segregation of 50 per cent Y and 50 per cent y. Therefore, 50 per cent of the r bearing gametes has Y and the other 50 per cent has y. Similarly, 50 per cent of the R bearing gametes has Y and the other 50 per cent has y. Thus there are four genotypes of gametes (four types of pollen and four types of eggs). The four types are RY, Ry, rY and ry each with a frequency of 25 per cent or 1/4th of the total gametes produced. When you write down the four types of eggs and pollen on the two sides of a Punnett square it is very easy to derive the composition of the zygotes that give rise to the F2, plants.
Chromosomal theory of inheritance
Mendel published his work on inheritance of characters in 1865 but for several reasons, it remained unrecognised till 1900. Firstly, communication was not easy (as it is now) in those days and his work could not be widely publicised. Secondly, his concept of genes (or factors, in Mendel’s words) as stable and discrete units that controlled the expression of traits and, of the pair of alleles which did not ‘blend’ with each other, was not accepted by his contemporaries as an explanation for the apparently continuous variation seen in nature. Thirdly, Mendel’s approach of using mathematics to explain biological phenomena was totally new and unacceptable to many of the biologists of his time. Finally, though Mendel’s work suggested that factors (genes) were discrete units, he could not provide any physical proof for the existence of factors or say what they were made of. In 1900, three Scientists (de Vries, Correns and von Tschermak) independently rediscovered Mendel’s results on the inheritance of characters. Also, by this time due to advancements in microscopy that were taking place, scientists were able to carefully observe cell division. This led to the discovery of structures in the nucleus that appeared to double and divide just before each cell division. These were called chromosomes (colored bodies, as they were visualised by staining). By 1902, the chromosome movement during meiosis had been worked out. Walter Sutton and Theodore Boveri noted that the behaviour of chromosomes was parallel to the behaviour of genes and used chromosome movement to explain Mendel’s laws Recall that you have studied the behaviour of chromosomes during mitosis (equational division) and during meiosis (reduction division). The important things to remember are that chromosomes as well as genes occur in pairs. The two alleles of a gene pair are located on homologous sites on homologous chromosomes.