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--- chapter_03 [2025/02/13 17:00] – [Mendel's First Law of Segregation] mike
+++ chapter_03 [2025/02/15 17:52] (current) – [Perspectives on Mendel's Laws] mike
@@ Line 180: / Line 180: @@
 This actually constitutes our second definition of a gene: genes are units of inheritance that follow Mendel's Laws. A phenotype is determined by a single gene if it displays a 3:1 dominant to recessive ratio in a monohybrid cross. Historically, this was the first and original definition of a gene developed by Gregor Mendel in the 1860s. Mendel was able to detect gene segregation of single genes in pea plants because he looked at simple traits and started with true breeding strains. That genes with two alleles segregate in this way is often described as Mendel's First Law.
-===== Mendel's Second Law of Independent Assortment =====
+===== Mendel's Second Law of Independent Assortment (dihybrid cross) =====
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 Historically, Mendel's First and Second Laws also set the stage for chromosome theory, which we discuss in [[chapter_04|Chapter 04]]. Chromosomes behave in meiosis the same way that Mendel showed genes to behave. This is now a good time to review [[chapter_01|Chapter 01]]. Each gamete receives only one of the two homologous chromosomes from its mother cell, a behavior that is analogous to segregation of alleles of a single gene (Mendel's First Law). Furthermore, the relative orientation of different homologous chromosome pairs (tetrads) at the first meiotic cell division is random, which is analogous to independent assortment of two different genes (Mendel's Second Law). To scientists in the early 20th century when chromosomes were just recently discovered and Mendel was just being re-discovered, this correlation strongly suggested that genes are physically located on chromosomes. In [[chapter_04|Chapter 04]], we will see the experimental evidence that supported this idea.
-You might also are wondering at this point: what if two genes happen to be on the same chromosome? We address this later in Chapters [[chapter_04|04]] and [[chapter_05|05]]. Mendel got lucky - the genes he chose to study were all unlinked to each other. If he had chosen genes that were linked to each other (closely positioned on the same chromosome) he may not have been able to draw the same conclusions that he did regarding his Second Law.
+You might also be wondering at this point: what if two genes happen to be on the same chromosome? We address this later in Chapters [[chapter_04|04]] and [[chapter_05|05]]. Mendel got lucky - the genes he chose to study were all unlinked to each other. If he had chosen genes that were linked to each other (closely positioned on the same chromosome) he may not have been able to draw the same conclusions that he did regarding his Second Law.
 ===== Application of Mendel's Laws to a modern problem =====