Question

Describe Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment and the meiotic phase that is involved. How is this law important in gamete formation when you are examining genes on different chromosomes.

Answer 1

Law of independent assortment: alleles of teoor more genes assort independent of each other.

in a diploid organism, there are two sets of chromosomes, that is in the diploid organism, chromosomes exist as a homologous pair.

on the chromosome, genes are located on the locus, chromosomes in a homologous pair has alleles of different genes on the same locus.

during prophase I of meiosis the chromatin condense to form chromosomes, DNA has replicated during S phase before Meiosis, so during prophase I the condensed chromosome pair up and exchange the genetic material, then during metaphase I the paired homologous chromosomes align at the metaphase plate, the chromosomes align such that any one of the chromosomes from the homologous pair can move to the daughter cell, then during anaphase I the homologous chromosomes are separated and moves to opposite poles, the chromosomes in the opposite poles ends up in different cells.

so metaphase I and anaphase I together contributes to the independent assortment of chromosomes, the daughter cells can get any one of the homologous chromosome, if there are two genes A and B located on different chromosomes, and the genotype of the cell is AaBb, A allele is one chromosome and the a allele is on its homologous pair and B allele is on one chromosome and b allele is on its homolgous pair, the daughter cells can get any copy of a chromosome ( independent assortment of chromosomes ) the possible genotypes of the daughter cells are AB, Ab, aB and ab.

If the genes are unlinked the assortment of alleles of these genes are independent of each other, genes on different chromosomes are independent of each other so alleles of these genes assort independent of eahc other during gametogenesis