Mendelian

Mendelian inheritance is a type of biological inheritance that follows the laws originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866 and re-discovered in 1900. These laws were initially controversial. When Mendel's theories were integrated with the Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory of inheritance by Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1915, they became the core of classical genetics.

History

Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, conducted experiments on pea plants that laid the foundation for the study of genetics. His experiments led him to formulate two laws, the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment, which later became known as Mendelian inheritance.

Mendel's Laws

Law of Segregation

The Law of Segregation states that every individual organism contains two alleles for each trait, and that these alleles segregate (separate) during meiosis such that each gamete contains only one of the alleles.

Law of Independent Assortment

The Law of Independent Assortment states that alleles for separate traits are passed independently of one another from parents to offspring. However, this law only holds true for genes that are not linked to each other.

Mendelian Traits in Humans

There are many human characteristics that follow Mendelian inheritance, including genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, and Tay-Sachs disease. These diseases are caused by mutations in a single gene and can be predicted using Mendel's laws.

Non-Mendelian Inheritance

Not all genetic inheritance follows Mendelian patterns. Non-Mendelian inheritance includes multiple alleles, incomplete dominance, codominance, and polygenic inheritance.

See Also

• Genetics
• Genetic linkage
• Punnett square
• Genetic disorder

References

Mendelian Resources
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