Jahnille Verdis

April 12, 2011

Dr. Da Silva

Bio 113 Lab

Lab Activity #10

1) What is a gene? What does it mean when scientists say human trait follows the Mendelian pattern

of inheritance?

A gene is the basic physical and functional unit of heredity. The formal description of inheritance

patterns began with Gregor Mendel, whose discoveries laid the foundation for the modern

understanding of genetic inheritance. Inheritance patterns are the predictable patterns seen in the

transmission of genes from one generation to the next, and their expression in the organism that

possesses them.

2) What are alternate forms of a gene called? How many alternate forms can occur?

Alleles

3) What types of traits, which show Mendelian inheritance patterns in humans, are listed in the lab

experiment for this week?

4) For the characteristics you listed in question #3, which traits are dominant?

5) In sampling the class population for human traits, would you expect the dominant traits to always

be more common, to always be less common, or to be different in their abundance depending

upon the gene?

6) In a pedigree chart, what symbols are used? What symbol represents a male? What symbol

represents a female? In a pedigree chart, what symbol represents the parents of a particular

family? What symbol represents the siblings?

Shapes are used in the pedigree chart such as squares and circles. Squares are used for males.

Circles are used for females. Parents of a particular family are symbolized by roman numerals.

Siblings are connected with either squares, circles or both with horizontal lines above them.

7) What is a karyotype? How is it determined? What does the normal karyotype for humans look

like?

A karyotype is the chromosomes of a cell, usually displayed as a systematized arrangement of

chromosome pairs in descending order of size. A dye such as Giemsa is applied after cells are

apprehended during cell division by a solution of colchicine. They have 22 chromosome pairs or

44 chromosomes and 2 sex chromosomes.

8) What are three examples of defective karyotypes in humans?

Three examples of defective karyotypes are Down’s syndrome, Kleinfelter's syndrome, and

Turner’s syndrome.

9) When can the phenotype tell you the genotype of a trait? Why do parental types need to be known

to determine the genotype for most cases?

A phenotype can tell the genotype by observing and measuring the characteristics of an

individual. The parental types determine the sex of the genotype.

10) What is the difference between autosomal chromosomes and sex chromosomes? Describe the

makeup of the sex chromosomes for each sex in humans. What is the Barr body?

Autosomal chromosomes are not sex chromosomes, which are the sex characteristics. The

makeup of the sex chromosomes for each human is x and y. A Barr body is a small, densely

staining structure in the cell nuclei of female mammals, consisting of a condensed, inactive X

chromosome.