Amacher Lecture 2 9 05 08 LECTURE 2 Chromosomes and Inheritance Reading Ch 4 p 81 88 105 110 Many of the classic papers mentioned in this and previous lectures are available at http www esp org foundations genetics classical Problems Ch 4 solved probs I II also 12 24 27 33 34 38 39 Announcements The first quiz will be given next week in section that will cover material through today s lecture The GSIs have agreed that students with legitimate excused absences can take the quiz in a different section during the week of the quiz as long as you arrange it with your GSI ahead of time No calculators are allowed on quizzes or exams We will cover pedigree analysis on Monday If you are having difficulties with the assigned pedigree problems please re attempt them after Monday s lecture See 9 3 Lecture notes for correction to parentl genotype phenotype in the sweet pea example DSP students should contact the DSP office as soon as possible My Office Hours will be Thursdays 1 30 3 30 on 9 4 9 11 9 18 and 10 2 There will be no office hours on Sept 25th due to a scheduling conflict Today we ll finish discussing epistasis see notes from 9 3 08 as well as discuss the evidence that confirms that genes reside on chromosomes THE CHROMOSOMAL THEORY OF INHERITANCE Evidence that genes reside in the nucleus About the time Mendel began his experiments cytologists were using microscopy to follow the union of paternal and maternal gametes during fertilization in sea urchins and in frogs Because the nuclei are the only elements that are contributed equally from the male and female gametes it was hypothesized that the nucleus contained the genetic material Evidence that genes reside in chromosomes In the 1880s technological advances allowed microscopists to follow chromosomes in the nucleus during mitosis and meiosis During mitosis each daughter cell inherited the same number and type of chromosomes as the parent cell During meiosis each of the gametes receives only one chromosome of each chromosome pair and the chromosomes assort independently as predicted by Mendel Furthermore the union of maternal and paternal gametes during fertilization yields a zygote with two complete chromosomal sets and the maternally and paternally derived chromosomes are alike in size and shape with the exception of the sex chromosomes in most species This suggested that chromosomes carry the hereditary information Sexual identity is correlated in many organisms with the inheritance of particular chromosomes Several cytologists McClung Sutton Boveri Wilson at the beginning of the 1900s suggested that in insects there was a relationship between specific chromosomes and the determination of sex For example Sutton showed that in the great lubber grasshopper there were 11 pairs of autosomes in both females and males but females carried an additional matched set XX of chromosomes and males carried only one X Sutton missed the Y chromosome in males but others to follow showed that in many sexually reproducing species not just insects that two distinct chromosomes sex chromosomes are the basis for sex determination Amacher Lecture 2 9 05 08 Sexual identity in other organisms In humans females carry 23 pairs of chromosomes 22 autosomal pairs and two X chromosomes whereas males carry 22 autosomal pairs and one X and one Y chromosome The fruit fly Drosophila also uses an XX female XY male strategy although in flies it is the ratio of X to autosomes that ultimately determines sex not the presence or absence of the Y In birds it is the female that has the unmatched set designated WZ and males are ZZ In some insect species the female is XX but the male is XO having only one sex chromosome Wilson pointed out this difference in the early 1900 s and used this to suggest that the accessory chromosomes sex chromosomes probably themselves weren t the actual sex determinants but that they acted in a quantitative manner to determine sex Based upon his observations Sutton proposed that the chromosomes carried Mendel s units of heredity But confirmation depended upon showing that specific traits were inherited with specific chromosomes Validation of the Chromosome Theory of Inheritance Thomas Hunt Morgan describes an X linked gene for eye color in Drosophila In 1910 a white eyed male fly arose in a stock of red eyed flies in Morgan s laboratory Morgan called the gene responsible for eye color the white gene because a mutation destroying its function gives white eyes The wild type allele is designated w red eyes and the mutant allele is designated w This is different symbolism than what we used for Mendel s peas Morgan s crosses Generation P red eyed female x white eyed male F1 all red eyed F1 F2 red eyed female x red eyed male 3 1 red eyes white eyes all white eyed flies are male Genotypes Xw X w x Xw Y Xw Xw and Xw Y Xw Xw x Xw Y Xw X w Xw Xw Xw Y Xw Y If the two traits eye color and sex assorted independently then one would expect that half the white eyed flies would be female and half would be male Reciprocal cross Cross white eyed female x red eyed male Progeny red eyed daughters and white eyed sons Xw Xw x Xw Y Xw Xw and Xw Y Note also that this cross gives a different result that the parental cross above Mendel never observed differences in his reciprocal crosses The white gene is X linked and the Y chromosome does not carry an allele of this gene for eye color Thus male flies are hemizygous for the white gene Nondisjunction Rare meiotic mistakes Calvin Bridges one of Morgan s students repeated Morgan s crosses on a larger scale When he crossed white eyed females Xw Xw to red eyed males Xw Y he observed that the Amacher Lecture 2 9 05 08 progeny was almost always red eyed daughters and white eyed sons except about 1 in 2000 males had red eyes and about the same proportion of females had white eyes He hypothesized that these exceptions were caused by a failure of the X chromosomes to separate during meiosis nondisjunction in the mothers This leads to gametes carrying 2 X chromosomes or no X chromosomes The cross is Xw Xw white eyed female x Xw Y red eyed male The Punnett square for the exceptional cases looks like this Xw Xw O Xw Y Xw Xw Xw lethal Xw Xw Y white female Xw O red male sterile Y O lethal Cytologically Bridges showed that the white eyed exceptional females had XXY chromosomal content and that the red eyed exceptional males were XO Furthermore he predicted that the exceptional Xw Xw Y females could make 4 kinds of gametes depending
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