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HEREDITY

The Units of Heredity

 Genes are the units of heredity and are the instructions that make up the body’s blueprint. They
code for the proteins that determine virtually all of a person's characteristics.
 Humans have an estimated 35,000 genes.
 Most genes come in pairs and are made of strands of genetic material called deoxyribonucleic
acid, or DNA.
 Genetic disorders are caused by one or more changes, or mutations, in the instruction code of a
particular gene(s), preventing the gene(s) from functioning properly.
 The study of human genetics is the study of human variation that is carried in the genes.
 The physical location of a gene is its locus. Different versions of genes are called alleles. For
example, an eye color gene may have a blue allele and a brown allele.
 Genes are organized in structures called chromosomes.

Structure of DNA
The DNA molecule is a double helix, and it is composed of three main parts:
 Five-carbon sugar (deoxyribose)
 Phosphate molecule
 One of four nitrogen-containing bases
o Adenine(A)
o Guanine(G)
o Cytosine(C)
o Thymine(T)
The double helix is like a ladder. Two anti-parallel strands are comprised of sugars and
phosphates, and the bases comprise the "rungs" of the "ladder."
The message encoded in DNA is made up of the four-letter alphabet A, G, C, and T, with each
letter representing one of the bases.
 What is heredity and how do we acquire it?
Let’s imagine a mother with her two daughters, who divides her belongings equally between
them. The mother has two closets, two chairs, two beds, and she gives each of her daughters: one
closet, one chair, one bed, etc.
In our case, what we are dividing is the 23 sets of chromosomes that we have in each of our
gonadal cells – that is the cells contained in the ovaries and the testis.
Remember that the parent cell, both in the ovary and in the testis, contains 46 chromosomes
arranged into 23 sets before it undergoes cell division. When meiotic division takes places, it divides the
chromosomes equally between both daughter cells. Thus, from the two chromosomes contained in set
1, one is given to each daughter cell, and this process is repeated for each of the remaining sets. In the
end, each
Review: Meiotic daughter cell will have received 23 chromosomes, or what is the same, an element from each
Division
set.

Subsequently, when the ovum and the spermatozoon unite, an individual with 46 chromosomes (23 from
the mother + 23 from the father) is obtained. In this manner, the number of chromosomes in the human
race is preserved.
Let’s also note that the information of the recipes contained in the chromosomes is copied
twice (with the exception of sex-chromosomes in the male “XY”). From chromosome or cassette number
1, we have two copies: one inherited from the father and one inherited from the mother. Simply
because they are from the same cassette number, they must contain exactly the same recipes with
exactly the same type of information, but with the specific variables that make up each individual.
Suppose that recipe number 25, inherited from the maternal “cassette” number 2, contains
information for blond hair, and that the one we have inherited exactly from the same place, but from the
father’s side, is for black hair. Both chromosomes and cassettes are giving us exactly the same
information (HAIR COLOR), but with the traits or variables that each individual presents (BLOND hair or
BLACK hair).
Consequently, the instructions for hair are received twice. The new individual will on some
occasions express the instructions given in both recipes, and on other occasions it will only
express one set of instructions, despite having both sets, because one will dominate over the
other. That is, it is easier for the dominant set of instructions to express or manifest itself than it is for the
other. In our example, the individual will have black hair because black hair dominates over blond hair,
but remember that the individual carries both recipes and sets of instructions: black hair and blond hair.
This situation is repeated for all recipes over and over again.