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Mendelian Genetics MCQ - Practice Questions with Answers

Edited By admin | Updated on Sep 18, 2023 18:34 AM | #NEET

Quick Facts

  • Gregor Johann Mendel- Father of Genetics is considered one the most difficult concept.

  • 29 Questions around this concept.

Solve by difficulty

Alleles are:

Which one from those given below is the period for Mendel's hybridization experiments?

Among the following characters, which one was not considered by Mendel in his experiments on pea?

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How many pairs of contrasting characters in pea plants were studied by Mendel in his experiments ?

In his classic experiments on pea plants, Mendel did not use :

 What was Gregor Mendel's main contribution to science?

Concepts Covered - 2

Gregor Johann Mendel- Father of Genetics
  • Mendel was born in 1822 in today’s Czech Republic.
  • In 1856, he began a decade-long research pursuit involving inheritance patterns in honeybees and plants, ultimately settling on pea plants as his primary model system.
  • In 1865, Mendel presented the results of his experiments with nearly 30,000 pea plants to the local Natural History Society. 
  • In 1866, he published his work, Experiments in Plant Hybridization, in the proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brünn.
  • He used garden pea (Pisum sativum) as experimental material because of its following features:
    • Well-defined contrasting characters
    • Bisexual flowers
    • Naturally self-fertilizes, resulting in highly inbred, or “true-breeding,” pea plants
    • Annual 
    • Large quantities of garden peas could be cultivated simultaneously.
  • Mendel conducted such artificial pollination/cross-pollination experiments using several true-breeding pea lines. 
  • A true- breeding line is one that, having undergone continuous self-pollination, shows the stable trait inheritance and expression for several generations. 
  • Mendel selected 14 true-breeding pea plant varieties, as pairs which were similar except for one character with contrasting traits. 
  • Some of the contrasting traits selected were smooth or wrinkled seeds, yellow or green seeds, smooth or inflated pods, green or yellow pods and tall or dwarf plants
  • The seven contrasting pairs of garden pea selected by Mendel were:
  • Mendel succeeded in deducing the inheritance patterns of different characters as he focused on one character at a time. 
  • Mendel provided statistical analysis of the results which added to the credibility of data collection.
  • For several reasons, Mendel’s work remained unrecognised until 1900 because of the following reasons:
    • Firstly, communication was not easy (as it is now) in those days and his work could not be widely publicised. 
    • Secondly, the scientific community believed incorrectly, that the process of inheritance involved a blending of parental traits that produced an intermediate physical appearance in offspring; this hypothetical process appeared to be correct because of what we know now as a continuous variation. 
    • Thirdly, Mendel’s approach of using mathematics to explain biological phenomena was totally new and unacceptable to many of the biologists of his time.
    • Finally, though Mendel’s work suggested that factors (genes) were discrete units, he could not provide any physical proof for the existence of factors or say what they were made of.
  • In 1900, three Scientists - de Vries (of Holland), Correns (of Germany) and von Tschermak (of Austria) independently rediscovered Mendel’s results on the inheritance of characters.

Terminology of Genetics
  • Gene:
    • The term was given by Johansson.
    • Genes are the smallest unit of heredity.
    • Genes are those segments of DNA that carry specific information.
    • Genes are made up of polynucleotides.
    • The location of a gene on a chromosome is called locus.
    • There can be many loci on one chromosome.
  • Genotype:
    • It refers to the genetic make-up of an organism.
  • Phenotype:
    • It refers to the physical appearance of an organism.
  • Alleles or Allelomorph:
    • The term was given by Bateson.
    • Alleles are the alternate forms of a gene.
    • They specify a pair of contrasting character.
    • Dominant alleles are those that express themselves in the presence of recessive allele. These are represented by capital letters.
    • Recessive alleles are masked when dominant alleles are present. These are represented by small letters.
    • They have the capability to be replicated, expressed, or mutated. 
  • Homozygous:
    • When both the alleles for a character are the same, the organism is said to have homozygous genotype.
    • An organism can have homozygous dominant genotype when both the alleles of a gene are dominant.
    • An organism can have homozygous recessive genotype when both the alleles of a gene are recessive.
  • Heterozygous:
    • When an organism has a dominant and a recessive allele for a particular gene, it is said to have heterozygous genotype.
    • The phenotype of a heterozygous individual is similar to a homozygous dominant individual because of the expression of the dominant allele.
  • Hemizygous:
    • It is the condition when there is only a single allele present. 
    • Gametes are said to be hemizygous because they have only a single chromosome, with only a single allele for respective genes.
    • Similarly, males are said to be hemizygous for the alleles present on X-chromosome because there is only a single X-chromosome present in males.
  • Punnett Square:
    • It was developed by R.C. Punnett.
    • It is a graphical representation to calculate the probability of all possible genotypes of offspring in a genetic cross.
  • Hybrid:
    • A progeny resulting from a cross between two parents differing at least in a single character.

 

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Gregor Johann Mendel- Father of Genetics
Terminology of Genetics

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Gregor Johann Mendel- Father of Genetics

Elementary Biology Vol 2

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