Introduction

In week 9, you will investigate genetics, the study of genes and how characteristics are passed from parents to offspring. To set yourself up for success, you should begin by watching the lecture videos, reviewing the lecture presentation slides, and completing the genetics practice problems.

In this topic, you will investigate the following questions:

How are characteristics transmitted from parents to offspring?
Why are the patterns of inheritance the same for some characteristics and different for other characteristics?

What You Will Learn and Accomplish By the End of the Module

8.1 Mendel’s Experiments

Describe the expected outcomes of monohybrid crosses involving dominant and recessive alleles
Recognize and explain the relationship between Mendel’s laws and meiosis.

8.2 Laws of Inheritance

Summarize Mendel’s laws of inheritance.
Explain the relationship between genotypes and phenotypes in dominant and recessive gene systems.
Use a Punnett square to calculate the expected proportions of genotypes and phenotypes in a monohybrid cross.
Explain Mendel’s law of segregation and independent assortment in terms of genetics and the events of meiosis

8.3 Extensions of the Laws of Inheritance

Identify non-Mendelian inheritance patterns such as incomplete dominance, codominance, multiple alleles, and sex linkage from the results of crosses
Explain the characteristics of polygenic and multifactorial traits.
Interpret a pedigree to determine if the pattern of inheritance is autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive.