Simple Mendelian inheritance problem

In the 1860’s, an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel introduced a new theory of inheritance based on his experimental work with pea plants. Prior to Mendel, most people believed inheritance was due to a blending of parental ‘essences’, much like how mixing blue and yellow paint will produce a green color. Mendel instead believed that heredity is the result of discrete units of inheritance, and every single unit (or gene) was independent in its actions in an individual’s genome. According to this Mendelian concept, inheritance of a trait depends on the passing-on of these units. For any given trait, an individual inherits one gene from each parent so that the individual has a pairing of two genes. We now understand the alternate forms of these units as ‘alleles’. If the two alleles that form the pair for a trait are identical, then the individual is said to be homozygous and if the two genes are different, then the individual is heterozygous for the trait. Based on his pea plant studies, Mendel proposed that traits are always controlled by single genes. However, modern studies have revealed that most traits in humans are controlled by multiple genes as well as environmental influences and do not necessarily exhibit a simple Mendelian pattern of inheritance(see “Mendel’s Experimental Results”). #genomics #genotype #Genetics #GeneticsLecture #genomes #geneticCode #Genetics101 #DNA #Cancer #alleles #genome #geneExpression #GeneticExamQuestionsSolutions #chromosome #GeneStructure #Proteins #GeneticTesting #gene #Chromosomes #genes #GeneticsExamQuestionsSolutions #MolecularBiology #Eukaryotic #Eukaryotes #phenotype