Genetics Vocabulary You need to know these!!!

TRAIT A distinguishing feature that a person has Examples: Brown hair Freckles Widow’s peak Blue Eyes

GENE The chemical factors in your DNA that determine your traits Genes for things give us codons which we use to make proteins and proteins help us express those traits!

ALLELE Each different copy of a gene Examples: you get one allele from each parent Blue eye allele from dad Brown eye allele from mom

HOMOZYGOUS Both alleles from your parents are the same Either both dominant (BB) or recessive (bb)

HETEROZYGOUS Alleles from your parent are different Dad gives you a (B) and mom gives you a (b)

DOMINANT A trait that will ALWAYS appear as long as there is one capital allele Widow’s Peak (WW or Ww) ALWAYS UPPER CASE LETTERS

RECESSIVE A trait that will only appear without the dominant allele No widow’s peak (ww) always lower case letters

GENOTYPE The actual letters of the alleles an individual has BB Bb bb

PHENOTYPE The way you physically look Brown hair Blue eyes Freckles

HYBRID Another term used to describe an organism that is heterozygous (Bb)

HEREDITY The act of passing down traits (alleles) from parents to offspring

GENETICS The study of heredity

SEGREGATION Separation of alleles during gamete formation!

What are the three laws of genetics? Mendel's studies yielded three "laws" of inheritance: the law of dominance the law of segregation the law of independent assortment Each of these can be understood through examining the process of meiosis.