What Is Genetics?

• Genetics is the study of how different qualities, called traits, are

passed down from parents to child.

• Genetics helps explain what makes you unique, why family

members look alike, and why some diseases run in families.

• When we trace the paths of these qualities, we are following

packages of information called genes.
 INTRODUCTION

• Term genetics was given by W. Bateson (Father of Modern

Genetics).
• Genetics is a branch of biology that deals with the collective
study of heredity & variations.
• Heredity is the transmission of genetic characters from parent
to offspring.
• Individuals of same species have some physical differences,
these differences are called variation.
• DNA was discovered in 1869 by Swiss researcher Friedrich Miescher,
who was originally trying to study the composition of lymphoid cells
(white blood cells). Instead, he isolated a new molecule he called nuclein
(DNA with associated proteins) from a cell nucleus.
• 1944 — Oswald Avery first outlined DNA as the transforming principle,
which essentially means that it’s DNA, not proteins, that transform cell
properties .

• 1944-1950 — Erwin Chargaff discovered that DNA is responsible for

heredity and that it varies between species. His discoveries, known as
Chargaff’s Rules, proved that guanine and cytosine units, as well as
adenine and thymine units, were the same in double-stranded DNA, and
he also discovered that DNA varies among species.
The Watson-Crick Model of DNA (1953)
 Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) is a double-stranded, helical molecule. It consists of
two sugar-phosphate backbones on the outside, held together by hydrogen
bonds between pairs of nitrogenous bases on the inside. The bases are of four types
(A, C, G, & T): pairing always occurs between A & T, and C & G. James Watson (1928
- ) and Francis Crick (1916 - 2004) realized that these pairing rules meant that either strand
contained all the information necessary to make a new copy of the entire molecule, and that
the aperiodic order of bases might provide a "genetic code".

 Watson and Crick shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 for their discovery, along with Maurice
Wilkins (1916 - 2004), who had continued research to provide a large body of
crystallographic data supporting the model.
 Working in the same lab, Rosalind Franklin (1920 - 1958) had earlier produced the first clear
crystallographic evidence for a helical structure. Crick went on to do fundamental work in
molecular biology and neurobiology. Watson become Director of the Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory, and headed up the Human Genome Project in the 1990s.
 Genetic material

• Definition:

• Any material of plant, animal, microbial or other origin that carries

genetic information and that passes it from one generation to the
next.

• The information contained controls reproduction, development,

behavior, etc.
 Properties of Genetic Material

• For a molecule to act as the genetic material, it should have the

following characteristics:

• Be capable of replication i.e. create its own replica.

• It should be stable, structurally and chemically.

• It must have the scope for slow changes (mutations) to evolve.

• Frederick Griffith
• While working with Streptococcus pneumoniae (the bacterium that
causes pneumonia) in 1928, Frederick Griffith observed a miraculous
transformation in this bacterium. When you grow this bacterium on a
culture plate, some produce shiny colonies (denoted as ‘S’) and some
produce rough colonies (denoted as ‘R’).

• Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty, together set out to determine the

biochemical nature of the ‘transforming principle’ identified by
Griffith. These people purified DNA, RNA, and proteins from the heat-
killed S strain and determined which macromolecule converted the R
strain into the S strain
• Although DNA is the genetic material in most organisms, in
some viruses, RNA is the genetic material.
• In fact, according to studies, RNA was the first genetic material.
But, since RNA is unstable, DNA evolved from RNA with
chemical modifications, making it more stable and more fit to
carry genetic information.
 Gene

• Genes are functional units of heredity as they are made of DNA.

• It is a subdivision of DNA and is mainly passed down from

parents to their children.

• Genes are generally organized and packaged in components

called chromosomes.
 Gene

• Overall, human beings have 23 pairs or 46 chromosomes.

• A set of chromosomes are passed on from a child’s mother, and

another set of chromosomes comes from the child’s father.

• There are about thirty thousand genes in every cell of the human
body. They play a vital role in controlling the functions of both DNA
and RNA.
The difference between DNA and gene are summarized
below
Difference between Gene and DNA
Gene DNA- Deoxyribonucleic acid
Genes are the DNA stretches which encode for DNA is a biomolecule, which contains genetic
specific proteins. information

Regulates the traits of an organism. Regulates gene regulation.

Gene is a specific sequence present on a short DNA made up of two long chains of polynucleotides
stretch of DNA. wound together

Genes are made up of either DNA or RNA. DNA is a polymer of nucleotides

A gene is located on a chromosome. DNA is located within the nucleus of the cell.

Are coded with heredity information. Encodes the genetic instructions.

• The Central Dogma: DNA Encodes RNA and RNA Encodes
Protein
• The central dogma describes the flow of genetic information
from DNA to RNA to protein.
 Nucleic Acid
• Nucleic acid is an important class of macromolecules found in all cells and
viruses.

• The functions of nucleic acids have to do with the storage and expression of
genetic information.

• Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) encodes the information the cell needs to make
proteins.

• A related type of nucleic acid, called ribonucleic acid (RNA), comes in different
molecular forms that participate in protein synthesis
 Structure of DNA
• DNA strands are composed of monomers called nucleotides.
• These monomers are often referred to as bases because they contain
cyclic organic bases.
• Four different nucleotides, abbreviated A, T, C, and G, (adenine,
thymine, cytosine, and guanine) are joined to form a DNA strand, with
the base parts projecting inward from the backbone of the strand.
 Structure of DNA

• Two strands bind together via the bases and twist to form a double
helix.
• The nitrogen bases have a specific pairing pattern. This pairing pattern
occurs because the amount of adenine equals the amount of
thymine; the amount of guanine equals the amount of cytosine. The
pairs are held together by hydrogen bonds.
• Each DNA double helix thus has a simple construction: wherever one
strand has an A, the other strand has a T, and each C is matched with
a G.
 Structure of DNA

• The complementary of the strands are due to the nature of the

nitrogenous bases. The base adenine always interacts with thymine (A-T)
on the opposite strand via two hydrogen bonds and cytosine always
interacts with guanine (C-G) via three hydrogen bonds on the opposite
strand.
• The shape of the helix is stabilized by hydrogen bonding and
hydrophobic interactions between bases.

• Deoxyribose, is a pentose sugar (monosaccharide containing five carbon

atoms) that is a key component of the nucleic acid deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA).
 Structure of DNA

• It is derived from the pentose sugar ribose.

• Deoxyribose has the chemical formula C5H10O4.
• Deoxyribose is the sugar component of DNA, just as ribose serves that
role in RNA (ribonucleic acid).
• Alternating with phosphate bases, deoxyribose forms the backbone of
the DNA, binding to the nitrogenous
bases adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine.
 Structure of DNA

• As a component of DNA, which represents the genetic information in

all living cells, deoxyribose is critical to life. This ubiquitous sugar
reflects a commonality among all living organisms.
• The sugar-phosphate backbone forms the structural framework of
nucleic acids, including DNA
 Structure of DNA
• This backbone is composed of alternating sugar and phosphate
groups and defines directionality of the molecule.
• DNA are composed of nucleotides that are linked to one another in a
chain by chemical bonds, called ester bonds, between the sugar base
of one nucleotide and the phosphate group of the adjacent
nucleotide.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv1TQXBQ6wQ
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lZRAShqft0