Inheritance mechanisms - principles of genetics

Timetable

Lectures 10h

Seminars 10h

Laboratories 10h

Module aim (aims)

This course will place special emphasis on heredity and variation, the mechanisms governing genetic inheritance, Mendelian and non-Mendelian genetic analysis and application of knowledge and skills in practical activities.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Basic knowledge of cell biology and genetics, group work skills.

Syllabus

Lecture 1: laws of inheritance, non-Mendelian inheritance, allelic and non-allelic interactions.

 

Lecture 2: Sex-linked inheritance: sex–linked traits and sex- influenced traits, mechanism of sexdetermination.

 

Lecture 3: Mutations – classification, mechanisms of spontaneous and induced mutations, repair, role in genetic analysis and evolution.

 

Lecture 4: Cytoplasmic inheritance – basis and mechanism, role of organellar genes.

 

Lecture 5: Quantitative inheritance – concept, genes and environment - heritability, penetrance and expressivity.

 

Seminar 1: Genetic experimental design: planning, data generation, data analysis, preparing final report. The Chi-square goodness of fit test. 

 

Seminar 2: Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism for genetic analysis and for human genetic disorders (e.g. Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s diseases etc.) – presentation and discussion on the selected papers.

 

Seminar 3: Deviations from the Mendelian inheritance: types of dominance, lethal alleles, complementation, epistasis – presentation and discussion.

 

Seminar 4: Sex determination in plants, animals and human - presentation and discussion.

 

 

 

Seminar 5: Human genetics - single-gene autosomal traits, pedigree analysis. 

 

Laboratories 1: Basics of setting up Drosophila crosses experiment: breeding conditions, life cycle, gender recognition, types of mutants.

 

Laboratories 2: Dihibrid crosses experiment on a Drosophila and maize models.

 

Laboratories 3: Inheritance of sex-linked traits – Drosophila crosses experiment.

 

Laboratories 4: Gene complementation - Drosophila crosses experiment.

 

Laboratories 5: Cytological preparation of polytene chromosome in larval stages of Drosophila.

Reading list

Winter P.C., Hickey G.I, Fletcher H.L. Instant notes in genetics. BIOS Scientific Publishers, 2012.Khanna P. Essentials of genetics. I. K. International Pvt Ltd, 2013.Klug. Concepts of genetics. Pearson Education, 2002B. A. Pierce. Genetics. A conceptual approach. 2017