Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T05:21:22.854Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2013

J. W. Van Ooijen
Affiliation:
Kyazma B.V., Wageningen, The Netherlands
J. Jansen
Affiliation:
Biometris, Wageningen University and Research Centre, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

Around 1900, scientists tried to understand the relationship between the inheritance of simple traits and observations of meiotic cell division under a microscope. It was the time that Mendel's laws on the inheritance of traits (Mendel, 1865) were rediscovered. Mendel did not have any idea of the biological mechanisms underlying his laws. However, some 35 years later, after studying Boveri's 1902 paper, Sutton (1902) realized that chromosomes and their behaviour in meiotic cell division could very well explain Mendel's results. However, in the many experimental crosses carried out to study the simultaneous inheritance of two traits, occasionally large deviations from Mendel's Law of Independent Assortment were observed. Bateson et al. (1905) described these deviations in terms of coupling of the heritable factors determining the traits. In subsequent work by Morgan and others, it became clear that heritable factors could be grouped with respect to the law of independent assortment: if two factors belonged to the same group, then their inheritance showed some interdependence; otherwise, the law would hold. In other words, they started realizing that these groups corresponded with chromosomes. By 1911, Morgan showed the possibility of recombination between factors lying on the same chromosome (Morgan, 1911a). Morgan assumed that this was due to an interchange (as he called the crossing over) between homologous chromosomes during meiosis. This corresponded very well with the detailed cytological observations of Janssens (1909). Later, Morgan (1911b) suggested that the heritable factors should be located in a linear fashion on the chromosomes and that the degree of coupling between traits would depend on the distance between the factors on the chromosomes. Sturtevant (1913), a student of Morgan, tested the hypothesis that the proportion of crossovers (as he called the recombinants) could be used as an index of the distance between two factors. He argued that, after determining distances from A to B and from B to C, it should be possible to predict the distance from A to C and to determine the order of the factors on the chromosome. Sturtevant successfully analysed six factors located on the sex chromosome of Drosophila and thus became the first ever person producing a genetic map. With his work, the chromosome theory of inheritance became really established.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bateson, W., Saunders, E. E. & Punnett, E. C. (1905). Experimental studies in the physiology of heredity. Reports to the Evolution Committee of the Royal Society. Report II. .
Boveri, T. (1902). Über mehrpolige Mitosen als Mittel zur Analyse des Zellkerns. Verhandlungen der physicalisch-medizinischen Gesselschaft zu Würzburg. Neue Folge, 35, 67–90.Google Scholar
Janssens, F. A. (1909). La théorie de la chiasmatypie. Nouvelle interprétation des cinèses de maturation. La Cellule, 25, 389–411. . Translated to English: Genetics, 191 (2012), 319–346.Google Scholar
Mendel, G. J. (1865). Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden. Verh. des Naturf. Vereins, Brünn. IV. Band. Abhandlungen 1865, Brünn, 1866. S. 3–47. and .Google Scholar
Morgan, T. H. (1911a). The application of the conception of pure lines to sex-limited inheritance and to sexual dimorphism. American Naturalist, 45, 65–78. .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, T. H. (1911b). Random segregation versus coupling in Mendelian inheritance. Science, 35, 384. .Google Scholar
Sturtevant, A. H. (1913). The linear arrangement of six sex-linked factors in Drosophila, as shown by their mode of association. Journal of Experimental Zoology, 14, 43–59. .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutton, W. S. (1902). On the morphology of the chromosome group in Brachystola magna. Biological Bulletin, 4, 24–39. .CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • J. W. Van Ooijen, J. Jansen
  • Book: Genetic Mapping in Experimental Populations
  • Online publication: 05 August 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139003889.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • J. W. Van Ooijen, J. Jansen
  • Book: Genetic Mapping in Experimental Populations
  • Online publication: 05 August 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139003889.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • J. W. Van Ooijen, J. Jansen
  • Book: Genetic Mapping in Experimental Populations
  • Online publication: 05 August 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139003889.002
Available formats
×