Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents.
In addition to studying genetic diseases, the increased availability of genotyping methods has led to the field of pharmacogenetics: the study of how genotype can affect drug responses. [106] Individuals differ in their inherited tendency to develop cancer, and cancer is a genetic disease. The process of cancer development in the body is a ...
Furthermore, Watson and Crick suggested that DNA, the genetic material, is responsible for the synthesis of the thousands of proteins found in cells. They had made this proposal based on the structural similarity that exists between the two macromolecules: both protein and DNA are linear sequences of monomers (amino acids and nucleotides ...
The duplication and transmission of genetic material from one generation of cells to the next is the basis for molecular inheritance and the link between the classical and molecular pictures of genes. Organisms inherit the characteristics of their parents because the cells of the offspring contain copies of the genes in their parents' cells.
A haplotype (haploid genotype) is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent. [1] [2] Many organisms contain genetic material which is inherited from two parents. Normally these organisms have their DNA organized in two sets of pairwise similar chromosomes. The offspring gets one chromosome in each pair ...
Genes are made from a long molecule called DNA, which is copied and inherited across generations. DNA is made of simple units that line up in a particular order within it, carrying genetic information. The language used by DNA is called genetic code, which lets organisms read the information in the genes. This information is the instructions ...
In a cell, DNA replication begins at specific locations, or origins of replication, [10] in the genome [11] which contains the genetic material of an organism. [12] Unwinding of DNA at the origin and synthesis of new strands, accommodated by an enzyme known as helicase, results in replication forks growing bi-directionally from the origin.
Recombination allows chromosomes to exchange genetic information and produces new combinations of genes, which increases the efficiency of natural selection and can be important in the rapid evolution of new proteins. [140] Genetic recombination can also be involved in DNA repair, particularly in the cell's response to double-strand breaks. [141]