Biology 120: Genetics
Topical Outline
Unit One
- I.
- Cells, Cell Division and Chromosomes
- A.
- Review Basic Cell Structure, with emphasis on the nucleus
- B.
- Chromosomes and Mitosis
- C.
- Ploidy and Meiosis
- D.
- The sexual life cycle.
- 1.
- What functions do mitosis and meiosis serve?
- 2.
- Why is it necessary for a sexual life cycle to have both?
- 3.
- How do the accomplishments of these two processes differ?
- E.
- Chromosome Anomalies
- 1.
- Aneuploidy
- a.
- Nondisjunction
- b.
- Trisomy and monosomy
- c.
- Autosomal aneuploidy
- d.
- Sex Chromosome aneuploidy
- e.
- Dosage compensation; X chromosome inactivation
- 2.
- Polyploidy
- a.
- Triploidy and meiosis
- b.
- Allopolyploidy and Autopolyploidy
- F.
- Some important vocabulary
- 1.
- Chromosome, chromatid, sister chromatids, chromatin, centromere
- 2.
- Mitosis, meiosis, cytokinesis, mitotic cell division, meiotic cell division, crossing over, recombination, independent (random) assortment
- 3.
- Gametes, fertilization, zygote
- 4.
- Nondisjunction, aneuploidy, monosomy, trisomy
- 5.
- Polyploid, diploid, haploid, triploid, monoploid, autopolyploid, allopolyploid
- II.
- Basics of Mendelian Genetics
- A.
- Mendel's New Approach
- 1.
- Follow one trait at a time
- 2.
- Begin with pure breeding strains
- 3.
- Carefully control breeding
- 4.
- Follow for more than one generation
- 5.
- Analyze results statistically
- B.
- Mendel's Principles
- 1.
- Particles in Pairs
- 2.
- Dominance
- 3.
- Segregation
- 4.
- Independence
- C.
- Monohybrid, Dihybrid, Trihybrid, Test and Back Crosses (words, words, words!)
- D.
- Statistics and Genetics (Caution! Math Ahead!)
- 1.
- Statistics as the tool for predicting and evaluating results
- 2.
- Chi Square Analysis of significance of data
- E.
- Pedigrees
- F.
- Some important vocabulary
-
- 1.
- Gene, allele, allelic
- 2.
- Genotype, phenotype
- 3.
- Heterozygote/heterozygous, homozygote/homozygous
- III.
- Beyond Mendel
- A.
- Dominance relationships
- 1.
- Complete dominance
- 2.
- Incomplete dominance
- 3.
- Co-dominance
- 4.
- Pseudodominance
- B.
- Genomics
- 1.
- Phenotype comes from genotype plus environmental influences
- 2.
- Multiple Alleles, Polygenes and Pliotropy
- 3.
- Epistasis
- 4.
- Penetrance and expressivity
- 5.
- Heritability
- C.
- Sex (Oh boy!)
- 1.
- Gender and Chromosomes
- a.
- Mammalian XX/XY gender determination
- b.
- Other kinds of organisms have different kinds of gender determination systems
- 2.
- Sex Linkage (in mammals)
- a.
- X linkage
- i.
- Mother to son
- ii.
- Mother and father to daughter
- iii.
- X linked recessive traits always appear much more frequently in males than in females
- b.
- Y linkage
- i.
- Father to son
- ii.
- Never to daughter
- 3.
- Sex Influenced and Sex Limited Traits
- IV.
- Problems you should be able to solve
- A.
- Monohybrid crosses and other single-gene crosses, involving any kind of dominance
- B.
- Dihybrid crosses and aother two-gene crosses, involving any kind of domiance, and involving epistasis
- C.
- Problems involving sex-linkage.
- D.
- Chi-square goodness of fit test of the statistical significance of data. This skill will actually be included in the second exam, not the first.
Material for Exam I ends here
Continue on to Unit 2
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Genetics