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The first uses of test crosses were in Gregor Mendel’s experiments in plant hybridization.While studying the inheritance of dominant and recessive traits in pea plants, he explains that the “signification” (now termed zygosity) of an individual for a dominant trait is determined by the expression patterns of the following generation.
Experiments on Plant Hybridization" (German: Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden) is a seminal paper written in 1865 and published in 1866 [1] [2] by Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian friar considered to be the founder of modern genetics. The paper was the result after years spent studying genetic traits in Pisum sativum, the pea plant.
Since dominant traits mask recessive traits (assuming no epistasis), there are nine combinations that have the phenotype round yellow, three that are round green, three that are wrinkled yellow, and one that is wrinkled green. The ratio 9:3:3:1 is the expected outcome when crossing two double-heterozygous parents with unlinked genes.
Pleiotropic traits had been previously recognized in the scientific community but had not been experimented on until Gregor Mendel's 1866 pea plant experiment. Mendel recognized that certain pea plant traits (seed coat color, flower color, and axial spots) seemed to be inherited together; [3] however, their correlation to a single gene has never been proven.
Mendel cross-bred tall and dwarf pea plants, green and yellow peas, purple and white flowers, wrinkled and smooth peas, and a few other traits. He then observed the resulting offspring. In each of these cases, one trait is dominant and all the offspring, or Filial-1 (abbreviated F 1) generation, showed the
Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants: plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color. Taking seed color as an example, Mendel showed that when a true-breeding yellow pea and a true-breeding green pea were cross-bred, their offspring always produced yellow seeds.
When he crossed purebred white flower and purple flower pea plants (the parental or P generation) by artificial pollination, the resulting flower colour was not a blend. Rather than being a mix of the two, the offspring in the first generation (F 1-generation) were all purple-flowered. Therefore, he called this biological trait dominant.
He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene. Trait inheritance and molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but modern genetics has ...