Gregor Mendel

Gregor Mendel

1. Who was he?

   • A monk
   • Studied variation and inheritance of pea plants
   • Published in 1866 but few people read it and even then, most did not understand it
   • Gained recognition 40 years after the paper was published

2. What did he find out?

   • Inheritance was not due to the blending mechanism but inheritance factors.
   • The cells in each pea plant has 2 inheritance factors for each characteristic
     • each haploid gamete (pollen grain/egg) only carries 1 inheritance factor for each characteristic
       • offspring could get dominant or recessive characteristic

3. Chromosomes, Alleles and Genes

   • DNA governs inheritance of characteristics
   • DNA carries genetic information
     • It is coiled into structures called CHROMOSOMES and is found in the nucleus of the cell
       • Each pair of chromosomes have the same genes although each gene may be in different forms called ALLELES
         • Each allele in a gene codes for the same characteristic but for a slightly different version of it
     • A small section of DNA is a GENE and codes for a particular characteristic