POINT 1

For most of human history we had no idea how

Children look like their parents.

Traits are passed on from generation to generation,

be it hair color, skin tone, height, or anything

else.

But a discussion of how traits are passed

along from one organism to the next is a discussion

of genetics, and to do any justice to this

field, we must go back to its inception, with

a man named Gregor Mendel.

POINT 2

Gregor Mendel who is an Augustinian friar carried out remarkable

experiments using garden pea plants and laid

the foundations of modern day genetics.

.Mendel, while working in a garden wondered

why the green pea plants with one particular

trait gave rise to plants with the same trait…

For example , plants with purple flowers gave

rise to plants with purple flowers only.

And Why do white colour flowered plants give plants

with white colour flowers only?

And what will happen if these two varieties are crossed?

With all these queries in mind, Mendel decided

to carry out a few experiments that would

help him find out the answers. ,

all of which was done decades

before chromosomes were observed and understood.

But where did he think all these experiments

would take him?

How did he think of beginning with the procedures?

And what were the list of requirements he gathered?

What could have been the possible conclusions?

Let us try answering all these questions one by one!

POINT 3

To begin with, let's understand WHY did Gregor

Mendel chose Pisum sativum, commonly known

as the green pea plant.

Mendel knew that for his experiments, he would

require a plant which can grow and

reproduce in a recurring fashion.

Secondly, the plant should have a small life cycle.

It should be able to grow quickly.

Also, Mendel wanted a plant that would not

require too many exclusive conditions to grow.

Minimal requirements should suffice

the growth of the plant.

Most importantly, to understand the results

of crossing different varieties better, Mendel

required contrasting traits in the plants.

That means one character should have two contrasting

traits.

For example, the flower colour in green peas

is purple and in some it's white.

Purple and white are the contrasting traits

that can help in the study!

So which were the contrasting characters that

Mendel found in the green pea plants?

There were seven pairs of contrasting characters

in total chosen by Mendel in the plant.

Here they are

The first character Mendel chose was height

of the plant . The contrasting traits were

tall and dwarf plants.

Second character in the list was the colour

of the flower . The contrasting traits were

purple coloured flowers and white coloured flowers.

And the third character on the list was position

of the flower . That could be either axial

or terminal.

In simple words, Axial means the flowers shoot

off from the middle of the stem, and terminal

means that the flower is situated at the top

of the plant stem.

The next character chosen was shape of the seed.

We know that green peas have two types of

seeds.

One type is round and smooth, while the other

type is rough or wrinkled with scales.

This was the next pair of contrasting traits.

After seed shape, we have the character of

seed colour . The contrasting traits in this

are the green and yellow colours of the seeds.

Similar to the seed colour, the next character

was pod colour . A pod is nothing but a case

that holds the plant’s seeds.

Here the two contrasting traits were green

coloured and yellow coloured pods.

And the last pair of contrasting character was

that of pod shape . Green pea pods can either

be inflated or constricted.

Both these traits are contrasting!

With these seven pairs of contrasting characters,

Mendel began his experiments.

Let's have a look at what his experiments

were and the conclusions he derived from them

in the next part.

We have taken a look at the seven pairs of

contrasting characters chosen by Gregor Mendel

for his experiments on the green pea plant.

so here is a table that gives us an idea of what

the contrasting characters and their respective

traits were !

POINT 2

Mendel thought of beginning with trying

to understand what happens on crossing the

plants with contrasting traits.

Now Mendel was curious to know, what will

happen if a purple flowered plant is crossed

with the white flowered variety?

Ideally the result has to be flowers with

intermediate colours.
But was that actually what Mendel got?

Let's have a look at the results in detail.

But before that , do you know how crossing

is carried out?

Well, the male and female plants are selected first.

Now the pea plant being bisexual, has both

male and female reproductive parts in the

same plant.

So we can choose the purple flower to be male

and the white flower to be female or vice

versa.

POINT 3

so let's actually look at how Mendel

conducted his experiment now we

mentioned seven characteristics but

we're going to just look at one we're

going to look at flower color ,the purple

flowers versus the white flowers so in

the first generation of the experiment

also known as the pea generation the P

stands for the parents he had one parent

with purple flowers and one parent with

white flowers now we tried it both ways

in some experiments the male had purple

flowers and the female had white and in

other experiments it was vice versa and

so what he did was he used a brush he

used a brush to transfer pollen from the

male flower over to the female flower

the female flower grew seeds he

collected the seeds and he planted them

in the garden and when the seeds grew

they became the f1 generation or the

first generation after the parents so in

the f1 generation of Mendel's experiment

100% of the offspring grew purple

flowers and that's kind of interesting

considering one of the parents had white

flowers so what Mendel learned is that

some traits are dominant and some traits

are recessive notice how the white trait

was hidden or covered this is the

recessive trait and purple is the

dominant trait because it appears to be

hiding the expression of the white so

now Mendel moves on with his experiment

he allowed the plans of the f1

generation to self pollinate he

transferred pollen from the male parts

to its own female parts

plants often have male and female parts

and

pollinate themselves and so then he

collected the seeds of the f1 generation

grew them in his garden and allowed them

to grow and this became the f2

generation and what he noticed as the

flowers grew was for every three that

had purple flowers one would have light

so 75% grew purple flowers 25% grew

white and so what Mendel uncovered is

that offspring don't always resemble

their parents notice the parents of the

f1 generation were all purple and yet

25% of the f2 generation had white

flowers he also noticed that traits can

skip generations

notice how the presence of white flowers

was skipped in the f1 generation moment

this is because white is recessive

So why did the recessive genes not express

themselves in the F1 generation?

And how did they get expressed in the F2 generation?

Let's understand this with the help of a

theoretical explanation of this cross.

Let's consider letter “P” written in

upper case as the allele, that is “factor”

in Mendel’s terms, for the purple coloured flower.

And the white coloured flower will be represented

with the allele “p” written in lower case.

Now, the first cross included purple flowered

plant and a white flowered plant.

So this is how we can represent this crossing.

Any idea why have we used the letter “P” twice here?

It’s simple!
The Green pea plant is a diploid plant.

What does “diploid” mean?

We have always come across the saying that

humans have “23 PAIRS” of chromosomes…

That’s because the chromosomes in us are

always in pairs.

Each set has one chromosome from each parent.

This is nothing but the diploid nature.

So when organisms have two sets of chromosomes,

they are referred to as “diploid” organisms.

Getting back to green peas, there are two

sets of genes in it.

That is why we use the letter twice to represent

both the allelic forms.

So here, “PP” written in upper case will

represent the purple colour of flowers, while

“pp” written in lower case will represent

the white colour of flowers!

This combination, this one, then this one

and this is the last one!

These are the 4 possible combinations.

Now, as you can see here, “Pp” indicates

that the offspring has one dominant and one

recessive allele.

In such a case, the plants will have only

purple flowers, as the presence of one dominant

gene is enough to express the trait.

That is the reason why ALL the plants have

purple coloured flowers in the F1 generation.

Before beginning any such experiment, we need

to make sure that the parents selected are

Homozygous in nature.

So let’s say, we wish to cross two organisms

with some trait named “A”.

The dominant form should ideally be “AA”

both in upper case, while the recessive form

has to be “aa” both in lower case.

Now, the recessive form will definitely be homozygous.

Why?

Yes, we know that the recessive character

is expressed only when it is in the homozygous

form.

But the dominant character can have both the

set of alleles.

So, “AA” in upper case as well as “Aa”

one in upper and the other in lower case,

can give us a dominant case.

So, it could be homozygous or heterozygous.

POINT 4

now Mendel examined again seven total

traits and so four flower color here are

his hairs his data he counted 705 plants

with purple flowers 224 plants with

white flowers so as we said a moment ago

for every three that grew purple flowers

one grew white this is a three to one

ratio for the other traits he counted

6022 plants with yellow seeds in 2001

with green seeds again a three to one

ratio when he examined the height of the

stem 787 with tall stems 277 with short

stems again almost a three-to-one ratio

when he examined the pod color 428

plants head green pods 152 head yellow

pods again almost the three-to-one ratio

when he examined the texture of the

seeds 5474 with smooth 1,850 with

wrinkled again almost the three-to-one

ratio when he examined the shape of the

pods 882 with inflated pods 299 with

constricted pods almost a three-to-one

ratio and then for flower position 705

flower plants with flowers in the

terminal position 224 in the axial

position almost a three to one ratio.

Mendel did experiment after experiment with

different kinds of pea plants, following the

traits expressed, or phenotypes, up to the

F2 generation.From this mountain of data, he developed two

fundamental laws of genetics.

These are the law of segregation and the law

of independent assortment.

Did he cross pea plants having other characters too?

Yes! he considered ALL the other characters

like plant height, seed colour and so on.

And then he found that only ONE character

is expressed in the F1 generation.

For instance, he crossed a pea plant having

round seeds with the one having wrinkled seeds.

In the F1 generation, he obtained all the

plants having ONLY ROUND seeds.

It implied that the offsprings are similar

to ONLY ONE of the parents and do not have

any resemblance with the other ! And this

was seen for all the characters!

POINT 4

And so what are Mendel's Laws? Well

the two things that he figured out are the

law one, Mendel's Law One. It's called the

Law of Segregation and Mendel's Law Two is

the Law of Independent Assortment. And so

let's start with law one. And so if we ever,

and I've got a coin here, because the actual

way you get genes are almost like a coin flip.

So if you think about a coin and it has heads

on one side and tails on the other, when you

flip a coin what are the odds that you're

going to get head or tails, well it's a one

in two probability that you'll get heads.

Same thing with genes. And so if this is that

F1 generation

so we say this is big P little p, what

are the odds that the offspring are going

to get a big P? Well it's a 1 in 2. What are

the odds that they're going to get a little

p, it's one in two. And so that separation

of those two alleles is called segregation.

And so this idea of segregation says that

there's a 50% chance that you're going to

get either of these genes. And so that's segregation.

They separate, and it's just random chance.

We now understand this is true because we

have learned about meiosis and the haploid

daughter cells that result.

In this way, Mendel was able to explain the

phenotypes in the F2 generation by rationalizing

that true-breeding purples have two purple

alleles, and true-breeding whites have two

white alleles, so when the sperm from one

fertilizes the egg from the other, all of

the resulting plants in the F1 generation

must have one of each allele.

Because purple is dominant, they are all purple.

But when the F1 generation produces its own

gametes, some will be purple and some will

be white, so when they self-fertilize, there

are four possible combinations, and those

are purple and purple, purple and white, white

and purple, or white and white.

Since purple is present in three of those,

that explains the three to one ratio, given

that only a plant with two recessive white

alleles will appear white.

POINT 5

When Mendel discovered the law of segregation,

he was looking at one trait at a time, which

we would call a monohybrid cross.

But when he started looking at two traits

at the same time, he discovered the law of

independent assortment.

He knew that the seeds of the pea plant could

be either yellow or green, with yellow being

dominant, and they could be either or round

or wrinkled, with round being dominant.

He took true-breeding plants with round yellow

seeds and crossed them with true-breeding

plants with wrinkled green seeds, performing

a dihybrid cross.

As we would expect, all the plants in the

F1 generation end up heterozygous for both

traits, thus exhibiting the dominant phenotype

for both traits.

But because we are examining two traits at

once, there are now four possible combinations

of alleles produced in the gametes of the

F1 plants.

If these plants reproduce, we end up with

a variety of possible genotypes for the F2

plants, because the Punnett square must involve

all possible combinations of all possible

gametes from two different plants.

The phenotypic distribution for a dihybrid

cross will always be 9 to 3 to 3 to 1, where

the 9 represents the proportion of the F2

generation that will exhibit the dominant

phenotype for both traits, 3 represents the

proportion that will show dominant for one

and recessive for the other, the other 3 is

for the reverse situation, and the 1 is for

the ones that will be recessive for both.

These results are significant, because they

show that each trait is determined individually.

Just because the F1 generation was heterozygous,

it doesn’t mean that the F2 will be.

The alleles for each trait separate at random

during gamete formation, thus demonstrating

the law of independent assortment, and also

demonstrating that the combination of alleles

that occur in any given organism is determined

entirely by probability.

Sixteen possible combinations, one in sixteen

chance for each one, so roughly one in every

sixteen plants will exhibit a particular genotype.

Because of this mathematical reliability,

we can use the rules of probability to predict

phenotypic distributions for more complicated

combinations.

Not all patterns of inheritance are this simple,

unfortunately, and as impressive as Mendel’s

experiments were, he could not explain certain

observations.

But since his time we have extended Mendelian

genetics to explain these observations as

well, as we now understand that certain alleles

are not completely dominant or recessive,

some genes have more than two alleles, and

a single gene can sometimes produce multiple

phenotypes.

,,,,,,,,

The next on is the Law of Independent Assortment.

The Law of Independent Assortment says that

this gene, the gene that causes for example

hitchhiker's thumb, which is where your thumb

actually bends back and the gene that causes

an attached earlobe, so right here I've got

a free earlobe. Those two traits don't affect

each other. In other words they sort independently.

They're going to not influence

one another. Now sometimes we'll find for

example that some things do travel together.

So you'll notice that people who have red

hair also have freckles. And that's because

those two genes are actually found on the

same chromosome and so they seem to travel

together. And so we're not going to deal with

linked genes. Again we'll do that later. And

so independent assortment means that traits

don't effect each other.

,,,,,

let's talk about Mendel's law of

segregation so I think the best way to

explain this is with an example

let's suppose that we have a parent

generation so we have a mother that is

homozygous dominant for the Big B allele

which means that she has brown eyes and

a father that is homozygous recessive

for the little B allele so he has blue

eyes the gametes that they are going to

produce our Big B from the mother and

little B from the father

when these gametes fused together and

fertilized they are going to produce

offspring that are heterozygous with Big

B and little B alleles these offspring

are going to have brown eyes because the

Big B is dominant and will mask the

recessive little B and this is the f1

generation now the f1 generation will

produce gametes in which half have the

Big B allele and half have the little B

allele so if you cross two heterozygous

individuals then in the f2 generation

our Punnett costs will look like this

we'll have one parent that has a Big B

in a little B and another parent that

also has a Big B in a little B and our

resulting possible gametes look like

this

this punnett square shows us that 25% of

the offspring are expected to have to be

homozygous dominant for brown eyes 50%

are heterozygous but will exhibit the

brown eye phenotype and 25% are

homozygous recessive so they will have

blue eyes and the culminating idea here

is that the law of segregation says that

two alleles for a single gene will

separate from each other during gamete

formation so they will separate and end

up in different gametes and this occurs

randomly again let's look at our punnett

square for the f2 generation we can see

that there are four possible gametes

that can result from the cost between

heterozygous f1 generation offspring we

can have homozygous dominant offspring

heterozygous or homozygous recessive and

this is because alleles segregate during

gamete formation

so ultimately each gammy has an equal

likelihood of getting a big B allele or

a little B allele

and this is all because alleles separate

independently or randomly during gamete

formation

WHERE ARE GENES LOCATED

The concept of genetic testing or the technique

in which our genes or chromosomes are tested,

helps us here!

But what are chromosomes?

We have always come across the saying

“Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes ”. But what

are they made up of?

And where are they actually located in the cell?

Let us try and answer all these queries in this session!

Here we have this simple cell as an example.

Can you see the thread like structures here

in the nucleus?

These threads are called Chromatids.

They are usually tangled in this fashion when

present in a regular active cell!

What if this cell has to undergo division?

Is it possible to divide this single cell

in two equal halves with such a tangled bundle

of threads?

Of course not!

Imagine we have these different coloured

threads tangled together.

If we were to separate them, then what should

be the first thing to do?

We will first separate each thread and then

make separate bunches.

In a similar way, even the cell separates

these chromatid threads.

This process is aided by Condensation of the threads.

It means these chromatid material will gradually

start coiling like a telephone wire.

As a result, the threads will gain structures like these !

Are we familiar with this kind of a structure?

Have we come across it before?

That’s correct!

It is the structure of a typical chromosome !

What are chromosomes you may ask!

Well, we will get into their details in the

upcoming sessions.

For now, we need to get a basic idea about them!

So we have this cell with threads sorted in

this classical chromosome structure.

This structure is seen only when the cell

is in the process of division.

So can we say that both chromatids and chromosomes

are the same ? Yes they are!

The different names are for the different structures!

Now the next question is, what are these threads…

or chromosomes to be precise, made up of?

If we zoom into the structure of this chromosome,

we find small segments like these that make

up the complete structure.

These functional segments are nothing but genes!

So can we say that chromosomes are made up

of genes?

Absolutely!

All these segments make up the whole structure.

Now let me ask you one more interesting question.

Do you think the genes will also be made up

of something?

Will there be units that make up these segments?

If your answer is yes, then you are absolutely

right!

Genes are also made up of some units.

If we zoom inside this gene segment, then

we find large molecules like these that make

up the segment.

These large molecules, or macromolecules to

be precise, are “DNA” molecules ! This

is not a new term for us!

We are quite familiar with the term “DNA”

as it is very commonly used these days!

But what exactly are these DNA molecules?

Well, this single large molecule is composed

of three units.

What units are these?

We will reserve this explanation for our upcoming

videos.

For now, all we need to know is that DNA is

made up of these units!

Now to quickly review what we learnt, let

me remove the text from the screen.

These three combine to give us a single molecule.

And many such DNA molecules form long chains.

What is a sequence of DNA molecules called?

That’s right!

It’s a gene!

So technically, segments of DNA molecules

which form functional units are called Genes

And many genes come together to form thread

like structures called chromosomes!

Chromosome is the classical structure obtained

only during cell division.

When the cell is not in the dividing phase,

the genetic material is present in the form

of tangled threads called Chromatids!

So this is the basic idea of the genetic material

in our cells, which we needed to understand

in order to look at the laws in genetics!

Let us get introduced to the laws in genetics

put forth by Gregor Mendel in the next part!