Genetics Vocabulary list 1
Gregor Mendel: Mendel, the first person to trace the characteristics of successive generations of a living thing, was not a world-renowned scientist of his day. Rather, he was an Augustinian monk who taught natural science to high school students. He was the second child of Anton and Rosine Mendel, farmers in Brunn, Moravia. Mendel's brilliant performance at school as a youngster encouraged his family to support his pursuit of a higher education, but their resources were limited, so Mendel entered an Augustinian monastery, continuing his education and starting his teaching career.
Character: An observable feature, such as flower
color. Don’t get this confused with
trait.
Trait:
A specific possible variation of a character.
If the character was flower color, a trait would be red flowers.
Heritable:
Able to be passed on to future generations.
P-Generation:
In a genetic study, this is the first generation of organisms.
F1-
Generation: The offspring of the P-generation.
F2-
Generation: The offspring of the F1-
Generation
Monohybrid
Cross: A cross of study that observed
only one character at a time.
Dihybrid
Cross: A cross of study that observes 2
characters at the same time.
Dominant: If alleles follow Mendel’s law, a dominant
allele will mask a recessive allele.
Recessive: If alleles follow Mendel’s law, a recessive
allele will be mask a dominant allele.
Homozygous: In observing an organism’s genotype, an
organism is considered homozygous if both alleles are the same, both dominant
or both recessive.
Heterozygous: : In
observing an organism’s genotype, an organism is considered homozygous if both
alleles are the same, both dominant or both recessive.
Gene: This is a hard one. In looking at Mendel’s work, this is a unit
of heredity. (Mendel didn’t know what
DNA is) After studying Translation, we
now consider a gene to be a section of DNA that codes for a specific trait or characteristic. We also know that DNA codes for proteins.
Law
of Segregation: Law of
Segregation: Mendel’s Law that
describes how when an organism produces gametes (sperm, ova, or whatever) the two alleles are separated and the gamete
will carry only one from the original pair.
Law
of Independent Assortment: Mendel’s Law
that describes how genes are able to
mix independent of each other. This law
of Mendel’s isn’t entirely true.
Punnet
Square: A square that is used to make
predictions regarding the genetic crossing of two organisms.
Locus
(loci- plural): The location on a
chromosome where a gene is located.
Test
Cross: A method used by farmers and
other interested parties to determine if an organism is true breeding or
not. There is either a 100% or 50:50
result.
True-breeding: Having only one type of allele and therefore
producing only one type of gamete for that character. One must be homozygous for a character to be true-breeding.