Mendel and his Works

Who was Mendel?

Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian
monk. He was the first person to lay the mathematical foundation of the science of genetics, in
what came to be called Mendelism. Mendel known as the "Father of modern Genetics", chose
to study variation in plants in his monastery's 2 hectares (4.9 acres) experimental garden. More
details about his life is presented as follows-
Name : Gregor Johan Mendel
Father’s name : Anton Mendel
Date of birth : July 22,1822
Place of birth : Heinzendorf, Vienna, Austria
1840 : Graduated
1843 : Joined the Augustinian Monastery at Brunn in Moravia
1846 : Attended some course on Agriculture in Philosophical Academy at Brunn
After finishing studies in 1848, was appointed as a substitute teacher in the
1849 :
Imperial Royal Gymnasium in Znaim
1851-53 Attended some courses on Mathematics and Natural Science in the University of
:
Vienna
1853 : Took the membership of Zoological-Botanical Society of Vienna
He was appointed as teacher of physics and natural science in a higher
secondary
1854-68 :
school at Brunn and continued up to 1868
1856 : Began experiment with garden pea
1862 : Became a founding member of the Brunn Natural Science Society
Delivered his first lecture on garden pea experiments to Brunn Natural
Science
1865 :
Society
1866 ‘Experiment on Plant Hybridization” was published in Vol. 4 of the
:
proceedings of the Natural Science Society, pp. 3-47.

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1884 : 6 January the pioneer of the classical genetics was died in Brunn
Methods of symbolization
English alphabets were used by Mendel to represent the factor or gene or allele. To explain the
dominant and recessive relationship between the alleles and to symbolize the allele constitution
(genotype) of an organism, the post Mendelian Geneticists have evolved following three
methods of symbolization: 1. Classical method
2. Modified classical methods
3. Wild type symbolization
1. Classical method
In this method the dominant allele is representing by its first capital letter of a dominant trait
while the recessive allele by a small letter. Thus according to this system, the genotype of
homozygous tall pea plant will be ‘TT’ and that of homozygous dwarf plant as ‘tt’. The genotype
of heterozygous will be ‘Tt’.

2. Modified classical method

According to this system, the dominant allele is representing by its first capital letter of a
recessive trait, while the recessive allele by a small letter. Garden pea is normally tall, which is
considered as wild type trait and the recessive which is considered as mutant, is represented by
letter ‘D’. Thus according to this system, the genotype of homozygous tall pea plant will be
‘DD’ and that of homozygous dwarf plant as
‘dd’. The genotype of heterozygous will be ‘Dd’.
3. Wild type symbolization
Another method is to signify the wild type by the sign ‘+’ and the mutant type by small letter of
recessive allele. When out of two phenotypes, one phenotype is of much common occurrence in
the population that its alternative phenotype, the former is referred to as wild phenotype. The
phenotype, which is rarely observed in the population, is called the mutant phenotype. For
example, in pea, dwarf plant type is governed by a mutant gene ‘d’ and tall plant type by wild
type gene ‘+’
Experiment on Plant Hybridization Mendel works
Before Mendel’s work, several investigators or hybridists had made hybridization experiments
with plants. Mendel was familiar with the work of predecessors. Mendel’s approach was simple,

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logical, scientific, mathematical and analytical, probably because he was well aware
about the failures of his predecessor hybridists like Kaight, Goss, Seton, Lexton,
Gartner and Naudin. The pre-Mendelian investigators made observation on plants and
animals as a whole and they studied all the variation in the hybrid at a time. However,
Mendel concentrated his attention on a particular character and at a time he studied
only one character of the hybrid. Further, unlike other hybridists, he designed his
hybridization experiments to record the number of different types of the progeny, to
arrange these types with certainty according to their separate generations and specially
to ascertain their statistical relations.
Selection of Experimental Plant
Mendel was very careful about the selection of the plant for his hybridization
experiments. In his own words-
“Experimental plant must necessarily possess constant differentiating characters
(variation) and the hybrids of such plants must, during the flowering period, be
protected from the influence of all foreign pollen grains, or be easily capable of such
protection”
Mendel found the plants of family Leguminosae such as pea and beans are the most
suitable materials for his experiments, because these plants had the following
characters-
1. Easy to culture in open ground or in pots
2. Short growth period and life-cycle
3. Self-pollinating flowers of peculiar structure
4. Contrasting heritable characters
5. Ability to produce fertile hybrids on artificial cross pollination
Characters those Mendel used in his experiment
Mendel used a total of following seven pairs of characters-

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Mendel’s Procedure
Mendel first had to see that the parental (P) lines of chosen plants were pure, and gave seed of
only one type when allowed to self-fertilize. He got the pure line for each character of the seven
pairs of characters of pea by self-fertilizing the plant for several generations until that started to
produce all the offsprings exactly of that’s own kind. For example, to get a pure line for tallness
of the stem, he self-fertilized a tall pea plant for several generations till the resulted offspring
always produce only tall plants. Likewise, he got genetically pure variety for short stem (dwarf)
pea plants by adopting the same technique. The two pure lines (tall × dwarf) were crossed by
removing the stamens for all the flowers before the anthers were mature and then dusting the
stigmas of both parents with pollen derived from the other. When both strains were used as male
and female parents, a reciprocal cross was made. Later in the same year, the mature pods could
be opened and the shape colour, etc., of the first generation pods, seeds and cotyledon were
recorded. In the next year, Mendel sowed the seeds of first generation to record the
characteristics of stem, leaves, flowers of mature plants, resulted by these seeds. These mature
plants of first generation were allowed to self-fertilize and the characters of offsprings of
subsequent generations were recorded.
Mendel’s Experimental Observation’s Results
Mendel’s observations of the hybrids (F1) revealed that hybrid plants (F1) continued the
characters of only one parent, none of them displayed any intermediate character of both parent.
Mendel’s observations of F2 progeny further revealed the fact the fact the recessive character
which was depressed or concealed in F1 hybrid reappeared in the F2 offspring in the proportion
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of three to one. So that among each four plants of F2, three displayed the dominant character and
one the recessive character. This 3:1 F2 ratio was observed to occur in the monohybrid cross for
each of seven pairs of characters. Mendel original F2 result for seven pairs of characters has been
given bellow:

Experiment 1: shape of Experiment 2: color of

Plant seed cotyledon
Round Wrinkled Yellow Green
1 45 12 25 11
2 27 8 32 7
3 24 7 14 5
4 19 10 70 27
5 32 11 24 13
6 26 6 20 6
7 88 24 32 13
8 22 10 44 9
9 28 6 50 14
10 25 7 44 18

F2 results of Mendel’s original crosses for seven experiments or seven pairs of characters-
Total no of
Sl. Ratio
Character Dominant/Recessive Dominant Recessive
No. in F2
seeds/plants
Shape of
1 Round/Wrinkled 7324 5474 1850 2.96to1
seed
Color of
2 Yellow/Green 8023 6022 2001 3.01to1
cotyledon
Color of
3 Grey/White 929 705 224 3.15to1
seed coat
4 Shape of pod Smooth/Constricted 1181 882 299 2.95to1
Color of 2.82to
5 Green/Yellow 580 428 152
unripe pod 1
Position of 3.14 to
6 Axial/Terminal 858 651 207
flower 1
Length of 2.84
7 Tall/ Dwarf 1064 787 277
stem to1

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Secrets of Mendel’s success:
1. Selection of the crop garden pea
a) structure of the crop
b) habit of the crop/plant type
c) nature of pollination
2. Selection of the characters he studied
a) dominance condition of the characters (each of the characters were under
complete dominance condition)
b) pair of gene controlling the characters
c) location of the genes on the chromosome (seven characters on four
different chromosomes)
Chromosome 1: Color of a seed coat and cotyledon
Chromosome 4: Location of flower, pod shape and length of stem
Chromosome 5: Color of pod
Chromosome 7: The seed shape
Rediscovery of Mendel’s work:
Mendel’s research paper remained dormant and unnoticed by the scientific world until
early 1900s. In 1900, three Botanists, namely Hugo de Vries in Holland working on
Oenothera, Carl Correns in Germany working on Xenia, Peas and Maize, and Erich
von Tshermak in Austria working on various flowering plants independently drawn the
conclusion like Mendel. Each of them obtained the ratio as those of Mendel and they
all provided the follow up work that Mendel was not able to do. Later these Botanists
came across the research paper of Mendel and rediscovered it in 1900. They named the
laws as Mendel's laws of inheritance and got it published in “Flora, 89, 364(1901)” in
1901.