Question

What do they mean by Mendelian inheritance? Be specific.

Answer 1

Inheritance is the transfer of genetic information from the parents to the offspring. Inheritance was first studied by Gregor Mendel in garden peas. He proposed the Mendels law of inheritance. The pattern of inheritance explained by his experiments is known as Mendelian Inheritance.

Mendelian Inheritance is mainly applicable to inheritance of a single gene. The gene from the parents gets seggregated to gamates in equal frequency and is inherited. Mendelian Inheritance follows the three laws of inheritance or the Mendels law of inheritance

1. Law of Dominance

                      According to this law, the traits or characters are controlled by factors or genes. Each factor has got two alleles. In a dissimilar pair of alleles, the dominant allele is the one which is expressed and the suppressed one is the recessive allele.

2. Law of Segreggation

                      According to this law, every factor has got two alleles and one allele from each parent is transferred to the offspring in equal frequency.

3. Law of Independent Assortment

                      It staes that Inheritance of one pair of factors is independent of inheritance of other pair of factors.

Mendelian Inheritance can be divided into three major patterns of inheritance

1. Autosomal Dominant

2. Autosomal recessive

3. X linked