Genetics: The Basics of Heredity and Traits
Classified in Biology
Written on in
English with a size of 2.94 KB
Chromosomes and DNA
Genes are contained within chromosomes, which are made of DNA and located in the cell nucleus. A chromosome contains thousands of genes. Every normal human contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, a total of 46 chromosomes.
Traits and Alleles
A trait is any gene-determined characteristic, often determined by more than one gene. Gene: A segment of DNA that controls a hereditary trait. Alleles are different versions of a gene that produce distinguishable traits in offspring. Two alleles must be present in order for a trait to appear in the offspring. One allele is provided by each parent to the offspring. When fertilization of sperm and eggs occurs, the new offspring will have 2 alleles for each gene.
Gregor Mendel's Contributions
Gregor... Continue reading "Genetics: The Basics of Heredity and Traits" »