John Gregor Mendel: Father of Genetics & Pioneer of Inheritance Laws - Essay Sample

Introduction

John Gregor Mendel is the most famous scientist across the world because he took part in the introduction of laws of Genetics. These laws include; Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment. He is also recognized worldwide since he conducted repeated experiments with the main purpose of identifying the traits that are inherited from one organism to another. Moreover, Gregor Mendel used several study models to enable him to find out the genetic make-up of various organisms. The paper will, therefore, discuss two laws of genetics that include; law of segregation and the law of Independent Assortment. It will also put into consideration Mendel's experimental design, his study model, and some of the advantages that were associated with the study model in his field of research. The paper will also focus on the evolutionary implications of gene duplication in the formation of gene families, how methylation patterns occur in male, germ, and female somatic cells and how gene expression is impacted by the environment and the determination of gene expression.

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Describe the two laws Mendel formulated from his research

The two laws that Mendel come up with during his study are; Law of segregation and law of Independent Assortment.

The Law of Segregation

This type of law implies that the characteristics of an individual are normally transmitted from the body of one organism to another. The transmitted traits are usually determined by the genes attached to each other (Del Amo et al., 2019). When it comes to the role of genes during the transmission process, Genes that are meant for parental role splits and form two types of sexes with each of these sexes carrying individual traits that determine the sex of the offspring during the process of fertilization (Hernandez-Nieto et al., 2017).

The Law of Independent Assortment

The law of independent assortment states that genes separations occur in an independent manner such that the characteristic of a certain organism depends on itself for it to exist.

What was Mendel Experimental Design

The most commonly known Mendel experimental design is on the Garden-pea plant. He conducted an experiment to demonstrate the specific traits that are linked to the genes of different organisms. One of the purposes of his experimental design was to identify traits that result after the blending of more than one color. Some of these characteristics in plants include short and tall plants. The emerge of short and tall plants in a garden pea-plant in his experimental design indicates the traits that are associated with shortness and tallness.

Mendel preferred pea-plant as compared with other types of plants while he was performing the experiment design because of the following reasons. Firstly, garden pea-plant has the adaptability of growing at a faster rate. Also, the garden-pea plant was thought to have got a variety of traits such as resistance to pests and diseases and is compatible with the other species of plants, thus producing the correct results at the end of the study. The other characteristics that were associated with the preference of garden-pea planet in experimental design are the common features of the length of the stem, flowers, how pods are arranged, the color of the flower, pods formation, and how seeds are normally formed.

Mendel conducted an experimental design by breeding a dominant species of plants with a recessive species of plants. The resultant offspring had varied traits in terms of their colors, therefore, leading to the emergency of hybrid vigor because of the mixtures of different colors. The advantage of the Mendel study model is that the offspring will have some advantageous characteristics, for instance, the ability to grow faster and resistance to the occurrence of kind of diseases due to possession of traits from different parents.

What are the evolutionary implications of gene duplication information of gene families?

There are various implications that can be drawn from the evolution of gene duplications in the formation of gene families. Gene duplications are aided by the evolutionary process is one of the conclusions that can be seen during the formation of the gene in families in the following ways ( Huang, Labbe, & Infante-Rivard, 2013). Also, through gene duplication, there is a selection of genes and genetic exchange whereby useful materials are transported from one region of an organism to the other for the purpose of growth of body tissues. The other implication of evolutionary is that gene duplication helps in the determination of the diversity and complexity in different organisms of the gene families (Li et al., 2016).

Describe how methylation patterns occur in male and female somatic and germ cells, which results in epigenetic heredity. Provide an example.

DNA methylation process occurs both in male, germ, and female somatic cells. The essence of this process is ensuring the effective transmission of groups of methyl, thus leading to complexity in the bodies of organisms (Fredrickson et al., 2013). DNA Methylation begins with the aid of epigenetics, whose function is to promote rapid growth in organisms. When it comes to the DNA methylation process in males, females somatic, and germ cells, it begins with genes being transcribed accordingly. Thereafter, Cell division occurs in the somatic cells due to the fusion of female egg and male sperm. Epigenetics is useful during the process of cell division because it helps in genetic expression and also ensures that the Transcription is successful. The role of the transcription process in male, germ, and the somatic cell is to silence genes.

Discuss the influence of the environment on gene expression, and how can it determine expressivity?

Gene expression is normally influenced by the internal and external factors found in the environment (Skinner et al., 2013). These factors include; chemicals and drugs, oxygen supply, temperature, and light. When it comes to the influence of the environment on gene expression through light and temperature, it impacts an organism in a positive way since it provides coloring pigment. Temperature helps to determine expressivity because it acts as a source of skin pigmentation in regions of the organisms such as eyes and fur. Also, light impact with the expression of genes, because it leads to various variations in the traits of the living organisms for instance birds with dusky wings, are taught to been originated as a result of exposure to green aspect of light while those with pale types of wings emerged as a result of dark exposure aspect of light.

Moreover, the environment has some influence on gene expression as drawn from the existence of chemicals and drugs. Magnesium chloride found in the environment has some impacts on gene expression of an organism such that the investigation of the fertigation process with the use of magnesium chlorides results in organisms with varied traits. For instance, some of the emerging embryos will possess the characteristics of having one eye.

There are also certain drugs that are associated with the environment. Thalidomide, as one of the drugs, has some effects on gene expression, for example, the problem of childbearing (Chandler, Chari, Tack, & Dworkin, 2014). This is normally expressed in pregnant women whereby there might be faced with this challenge hence exposing them to risk at their process of giving birth. Furthermore, the environment may negatively pass some impacts on gene expression through oxygen supply, especially when it comes to the growing infants in that there would be a reduction of oxygen supply, therefore, interfering with the function of the brain of most of the organisms. Also, the decline in the supply of oxygen can expose organisms to challenges such as breathing difficulties that may later result in death. Oxygen supply determines expressivity by laying down the rhythm process when organisms are aiming at least to achieve effective breathing for them to get access to adequate oxygen supply in their surrounding environment.

References

Chandler, C. H., Chari, S., Tack, D., & Dworkin, I. (2014). Causes and consequences of genetic background effects illuminated by integrative genomic analysis. Genetics, 196(4), 1321-1336.

Del Amo, V. L., Leger, B. S., Cox, K. J., Gill, S., Bishop, A. L., Scanlon, G. D., ... & Choudhary, A. (2019). Small-molecule control of super-Mendelian inheritance in gene drives. bioRxiv, 665620.

Fredrickson, B. L., Grewen, K. M., Coffey, K. A., Algoe, S. B., Firestine, A. M., Arevalo, J. M., ... & Cole, S. W. (2013). A functional genomic perspective on human well-being. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(33), 13684-13689.

Hernandez-Nieto, C., Rodriguez-Purata, J., Sekhon, L., Lee, J. A., Whitehouse, M. C., Copperman, A. B., ... & Pavilion, K. (2017). Mendel's law of segregation validated through preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Fertility and Sterility, 107(3), e37-e38.

Huang, L. O., Labbe, A., & Infante-Rivard, C. (2013). Transmission ratio distortion: a review of concept and implications for genetic association studies. Human genetics, 132(3), 245-263.

Karatas, A., Simsek, C. L., & Kumbiçak, Z. A. (2013). A Model Suggestion to Prove That "The Role of Independent Assortment in Genetic Diversity is More Important Than Crossing Over." Elementary Education Online, 12(1).

Li, Z., Defoort, J., Tasdighian, S., Maere, S., Van de Peer, Y., & De Smet, R. (2016). Gene duplicability of core genes is highly consistent across all angiosperms. The Plant Cell, 28(2), 326-344.

Skinner, M. K., Haque, C. G. B. M., Nilsson, E., Bhandari, R., & McCarrey, J. R. (2013). Environmentally induced transgenerational epigenetic reprogramming of primordial germ cells and the subsequent germline. PloS one, 8(7).