HEREDITY

Presented by:
Pauline Grace P. Castillano
What is Heredity?
Heredity refers to the genetic
heritage passed down by our
biological parents. It’s why we
look like them! More
specifically, it is the transmission
of traits from one generation to
the next. These traits can be
physical, such as eye colour,
blood type or a disease, or
behavioural.
Heredity can pass on:
Hair Eyes Height Intelligence

Talents Or even that cute

little dimple
But, it can also pass on hereditary birth
defects like:
• Downs Syndrome
• Hemophilia
• Muscular Dystrophy
• Sickle Cell Anemia
• Cleft Palate
• Cystic Fibrosis
• Spina Bifida
A little bit of history…
Gregor Mendel was an
Austrian priest and
scientist – often called the
“Father of Genetics”.

He spent time observing

plants – Mendel wondered
why different pea plants
had different
characteristics.
Mendel noticed the differences in:
 The flower color
 Flower position
 Seed color
 Seed shape
 Pea pod
 Pod color
 Stem Height
This lead him to experiment on
the plants…
Sex Cells in Flowers
Pistil: produces female sex cells
(eggs)

Stamen: produces pollen, which

contain the male sex cells (sperm)

When the pollen reaches the pistil,

pollination occurs, and when the
sex cells join, fertilization occurs.
Mendel’s Experiments
Purebred: offspring where all
previous generations have the
same trait.
Example: a purebred short plant
came from both short parent
plants.
First, he crossed purebred
purple with a purebred white
Result of F1 Generation: all
plants had purple flowers
Second Experiment:
Crossed two of the
purple offspring in the
F1 generation
The F2 generation
resulted in some
offspring having purple
flowers and others
having white flowers.
His experiments lead him to wonder:
Why did this occur? So he continued
experimenting.
Self-pollination – when pollen
from plant is transferred to a flower
on the same plant
Cross pollination – when pollen
from a plant is transferred to a
flower on a different plant

In his experiments, Mendel used

pollen from the flowers of purebred
tall plants to pollinate by hand the
flowers of purebred short plants
Mendel found that tall plants
crossed with short plants
produced all tall plants.
Mendel called the tall plant dominant because it
dominated or covered up the short term.
He called the short form that seemed to disappear
the recessive factor.
 Probability {Mendel made a prediction}
He used a Punnett Square, a
tool used to predict results
in genetics. It helps predict
what offspring would look
like.
In a Punnett square, the
letters represent the
dominant and recessive
alleles.
An upper case letter stands
for dominant allele.

A lower case letter stands

for recessive allele.
A Punnett square shows the genotype or the genetic
make up of an organism inherited from its parents.
It also shows the phenotype which is the appearance
of an organism.
Most cells in your body
have two alleles for every
trait. The alleles located on
the chromosomes within
the nucleus.
Example: Trait – Height
T allele would be for Tall
t allele would be for Short
An organism with two
alleles that are the same
is called homozygous
(TT).
An organism that has
two different alleles for a
trait is called
heterozygous (Tt).
 How do inherit traits from our parents?
An inherited trait is one that is genetically
determined. Inherited traits are passed from
parent to offspring according to the rules of
Mendelian genetics. Most traits are not strictly
determined by genes, but rather are influenced
by both genes and environment.
"Inherited" is a word we use to describe traits that are passed by genetics from parents to child. It is often confused with the word "familial", which
sometimes people use to mean the same thing. But it's important to recall that familial traits can be either acquired or inherited and can be caused
by shared environment. When geneticists use the word "inherited", it's limited to the vertical transmission of traits attributable to genes.

Leslie G. Biesecker, M.D.