Mendels Law of Segregation

Anthropology Assignment 2
BSELC01133008
Hanfa Shakeel
2 April 2015

Introduction
Mendelian laws of inheritance are statements about the way certain characteristics are
transmitted from one generation to another in an organism. The laws were derived by the
Austrian monk Gregor Mendel based on experiments he conducted in the period from
about 1857 to 1865. For his experiments, Mendel used ordinary pea plants. Among the
traits that Mendel studied were the color of a plant's flowers, their location on the plant,
the shape and color of pea pods, the shape and color of seeds, and the length of plant
stems.
Mendel's laws form the theoretical basis of our understanding of the genetics of
inheritance. Mendel has three different theoretical laws of genetics that he summarizes as
Mendels Laws of Inheritance, they are:
1stTheLawofSegregation
2ndTheLawofIndependentAssortment
3rdTheLawofDominance
ThisassignmentwillfocusmainlyontheMendelsfirstLawofGeneticsalsoknownas
theLawofSegregation,whilebrieflyexplainingtheothertwolaws.
First,MendelsSecondandThirdLawofGeneticswillbeexplainedbriefly:

The Law of Independent Assortment

That law refers to the fact that any plant contains many different kinds of genes. One
gene determines flower color, a second gene determines length of stem, a third gene
determines shape of pea pods, and so on. Mendel discovered that the way in which alleles
from different genes separate and then recombine is unconnected to other genes. This

means that traits are transmitted to offspring independently of one another. An Example is
shown below:

This image shows a true-breeding plant with the dominant traits of green pod color (GG)
and yellow seed color (YY) being cross-pollinated with a true-breeding play with a
yellow pod color (gg) and green seeds (yy). The resulting offspring are all green pod
color and yellow seeds (GgYy). If the offspring are allowed to self pollinate, a 9:3:3:1
ratio will be seen in the next generation. About 9 plants will have green pods and yellow
seeds, 3 will have green pods and green seeds, 3 will have yellow pods and yellow seeds
and 1 will have a yellow pod and green seeds.

Law of Dominance
Some alleles are dominant while others are recessive; an organism with at least one
dominant allele will display the effect of the dominant allele. In a cross of parents that are
pure for contrasting traits, only one form of the trait will appear in the next generation.
Offspring that are hybrid for a trait will have only the dominant trait in the phenotype.
Suppose that a gene contains an allele for red color (R) and an allele for white color (r).

Mendel's states that in every

pair of alleles, one is more
likely to be expressed than the
other. In other words, one allele
is dominant and the other allele
is recessive. In the example of
an Rr gene, the flowers
produced will be red because
the allele R is dominant over
the allele r. This image is a
clear example:

For example, when pea plants with round seeds (RR) are crossed with plants with
wrinkled seeds (rr), all seeds in F1 generation were found to be round (Rr). When these
F1 generation is self fertilized both the round and wrinkled seeds appeared in F2
generation in 3:1 ratio. This means that the suppressed gene (r) of wrinkled seeds were
not omitted from F1 generation, they are just masked by dominant gene (R) of round
seeds.

Law of Segregation
Mendel's law of segregation describes what happens to the alleles (controlling factors)
that make up a gene (inheritable trait) during formation of gametes (sex cells). This law
states that during gamete (sex cell) formation, the alleles (controlling factors) for each
gene (inheritable trait) separate from each other so that each gamete (sex cell) carries
only one allele (controlling factor) for each gene (inheritable trait). More precisely, the
law states that when any individual produces gametes, the copies of a gene separate so
that each gamete receives only one copy (allele). A gamete will receive one allele or the
other. So it can either be dominant or recessive.
Mendel's law of segregation has four parts. First, it defines an allele (the factors
determining heritable characteristic). Second, it states that organisms inherit one allele
from each parent. Third, it states that gametes (sex cells) only carry one allele for each
trait. Fourth, it defines the difference between dominant (fully expressed) and recessive
genes (masked).

For example: in the case of pod color, the Mendel Pea Experiment showed that a cross
between a green pod plant and a yellow pod plant produced only green pod plants for the
F1 generation. It appeared that the yellow pod characteristic had disappeared.However,
in the F2 generation the yellow pod variant appeared in a quarter of this generation.
After this experiment, Mendel concluded four points:
1. The hereditary determinants are of a particulate nature. These determinants are
called genes.
2. Each parent has a gene pair in each cell for each trait studied. The F1 from a cross
of two pure lines contains one allele for the dominant phenotype and one for the
recessive phenotype. These two alleles comprise the gene pair.
3. One member of the gene pair segregates into a gamete, thus each gamete only
carries one member of the gene pair.
4. Gametes unite at random and irrespective of the other gene pairs involved.