Mendels law of inheritance

Mendel was the first to explain that heredity involved transmission of

units from reproductive cells of the parents to the offspring. He used the
term 'factors' for the hereditary units, now called as genes. Mendel
selected garden pea (Pisum sativum) as the plant material for his
experiments. He considered seven characters of the pea plant for his
study. Each such character had two extremes or contrasting traits, e.g.,
height of plant- tallness or dwarfness, colour of flowers- red or white,
shape of seed-round or wrinkled etc.
Hybrid is the product of cross between two dissimilar parents
having contrasting characters. This generation of heterozygous
individuals is first filial generation (F1). The second generation produced
by self pollinating (selfing) is second filial generation (F2) & so on. The
cross involving two homozygous parents differing in a single pair of
contrasting character is called monohybrid cross, whereas, if the
parental stocks differ by two pairs of contrasting characters, the cross is
said to be dihybrid. Mendel performed both monohybrid and dihybrid
crosses and based on their results, he postulated Mendel's law of
inheritance. These laws are:
I.

Law of dominance:
When two homozygous individuals with one or more contrasting

characters (traits) are crossed, the characters with phenotypic expression

in F1 generation are dominant characters and those which are
suppressed in F1 generation are recessive characters, e.g., When a
homozygous tall pea plant (TT) is crossed with a dwarf pea plant (tt) in
F1 generation all plants are tall (Tt) although they have received the
factors for both tallness & dwarfness. Here, the factor for tallness is
dominant while the factor for dwarfness is recessive.

II.

Law of segregation or law of purity of gametes:

This law states that two contrasting allele factors of a character
which remain together in a heterozygote individual do not get
mixed up but keep their identity distinct, separate or segregate out
at the time of gamete formation, so that a gamete possesses only
one out of two alleles.
This means that when a pair of contrasting factors or alleles is
brought together in a heterozygote, two members of the allelic pair
remain together without blending or mixing and at the time of
gamete formation from the hybrid, the two alleles separate out
from each other and only one enters each gamete. Eg, Tallness (T)
& dwartness(t) are two contrasting factors present in heterozygote
(Tt). It develops tall characters but possesses factors for both tall &
dwarf but as soon as they get chance to separate, they segregate
out. Therefore, the alleles of heterozygote segregate out into
gametes in equal proportions.

III.

Law of independent assortment (law of free recombination):

This law states that the factors of different characters located in different
pairs of chromosomes are independent of one another during gamete
formation. When two pairs of independent alleles enter into combination,
their dominance in the F2 is independent of one another.

Male Gametes of F1
TR

Tr

TTRR

TTRr

Tall-

Tall-

TR

Female gametes of F1

Eg.

re

re

TTRr

TTrr

Tall-

Tall-

Tr

re

re

tr

TtRR
Tallred
3
TtRr
Tallred
7

TtRR

TtRr

ttRR

Tall-

Tall-

Dward

tR

re

re

red

10

TtRr
TallTr

Tall-

re
13

11

Ttrr

d
When

tR

ttRr

Dwarf-

hi

red

te
14

15

TtRr
Tall-red
4

Ttrr
Tall-red
8
2

ttRr
Dwardred
12
Ttrr
Dwarfwhi
te
16

a pea plant

of two different characters- tallness & red flowers (TTRR) is crossed with
a pea plant with dwarfness & white flowers (ttrr), all plants are tall with
red flowers with the genotype (TtRr) in the F1 generation. The F1 plants
produce all four types of gametes: TR, Tr, tR, tr. The T & R and t & r are
free to assort themselves randomly.
When the F1 generation is self pollinated, all four of the above-mentioned
gametes are formed, all in equal number. There are 16 possible
combinations among the gametes as these gametes can unite freely and

randomly. This results in the formation of 4 kinds of phenotypes and 9

kinds of genotypes.
In F2 generation,
Phenotypes:
Tall plant & red flower are seen in boxes no.1, 2,3,4,5,7,9,10,13 i.e. at
9/16 F2 offspring.
Similarly,
Tall plant & white flower are in boxes no. 6,8,14 i.e. 3/16
Dwarf plant & red flower are in boxes no. 11, 12, 15 i.e. 3/16
Dwarf plant & white flower is in box no.
16 i.e. 1/16
So,
Dyhybrid ratio = 9:3:3:1
Among these F2 offspring, Tall plant-red flower and dwarf plant-white
flower are parental combinations. But, dwarf plant-red flower and tall
plant-white flower are new combinations and are called recombinants.
The appearance of recombinants in F2 generation proves that each pair of
alleles segregate independent of each other.