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Human Genetic History Unassessed (inactive)

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Who defined Allele ?

"...An allele is one member of a pair or series of different forms of a gene. Usually alleles are coding sequences, but sometimes the term is used to refer to a non-coding sequence..." Who is the individual that formally established this and where did he do this ? TongueSpeaker (talk) 12:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey backspace! Whats up? I see you're still playing your silly word games, how fun! Anyway, allele was first used by Bateson and Saunders (1902) in this work: Bateson W. (1902). Mendel's Principles of Hereditary: A Defence. London: Cambridge University Press. Available at: www.esp.org/books/bateson/mendel/facsimile

Edith Saunders was a woman living in a man's word so she didn't get much credit (if any). Remember: its just a wordf describing a thing, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that there is a gian conspiracy against you! --Woland (talk) 17:30, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about this allele is it that I don't understand because you defined it yet. Did Saunders for example know that a gene is an encoding/decoding mechanism, in what way will this influence the yet to be defined concept of "allele"? This author says the following about genes "....Physical evolution requires genes to work. Any rational scientists knows that there's not a smidgen of evidence there is a single gene, much less genes. Read Watson's and Crick's two original articles in Science magazine, and you'll discover they ask a number of "what if" questions, not of which have been answered. For example. When the two strands of DNA untwist to replicate, what prevents them from getting tangled up? The concepts of genes is one of the most irrational concept that ever existed...."http://time-blog.com/eye_on_science/2007/02/the_evolution_wars_visit_eye_o.html. How should we interpret the yet to be defined concept of an allele in the light of what he wrote.?TongueSpeaker (talk) 12:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Test

"... if the "red" allele is dominant to the "white" allele, in a heterozygous flower (with one red and one white allele), the petals will be white."

My genetics is very rusty, but surely the petals in this case will be red?

I think you're right. Fixed. Evercat 22:25 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

uhmm... isn't the flower supposed to be pink? Because I tought that the flower Mendel is talking about has two dominant alleles. like this

  P   GG + gg
  F1  Gg

Read the text: "if the red allele is dominant..." If it is dominant, that means the heterozygote is red. In the absence of dominance, the flower would indeed be pink. If both the red and white alleles would be dominant (i.e., co-dominant), you would be able to see the phenotypes associated with both alleles simultaneously: a flower with red and whit patches or stripes or something like that. --Crusio (talk) 15:51, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

As a newcomer to Wikipedia I wonder if it would be appropriate to note that the word rhymes with 'heel' and not 'ukelele'.

IPA is typically used to this end. —Casey J. Morris 21:12, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

mechanism for dominance?

How does the ribosomes, etc. recognise which is a dominant gene, which is a recessive one, or which sequences trigger it to be recessive or dominant in the first place? Do we know? -- Natalinasmpf 08:31, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't. If both dominant and recessive alleles are present, both are transcribed and translated by the ribosome. "Dominant" and "recessive" are a result of the different properties of the fully-formed proteins themselves. There's various mechanisms whereby this can happen, depending on what the gene is. Graft 03:43, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If one allele has no start codon it will not even be transcribed into RNA. The resulting "no protein allele" will be the same phenotype as "malformed protein allele" to the casual observer.--35.11.210.84 21:28, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is wrong - if it has no start codon, it will make it to RNA, but the RNA will not be translated into protein. If the promoter or some enhancer element, etc., is damaged, THEN the RNA will not be transcribed. You are correct that this will result in a "null" phenotype (assuming no other intact copy of the gene is present on the other chromosome). However, a "malformed" (truncated) protein may end up having a phenotype after all, depending on where it truncates. Graft 13:04, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"As a newcomer to Wikipedia I wonder if it would be appropriate to note that the word rhymes with 'heel' and not 'ukelele'" YES! this is my Daughters name and everery one alway pronounces it "Ah-Lay-Lee" When its pronounced "Ah-Lee-uhl". Thanks for pointing this out...

It is incorrect to say that one allele is dominant over another. It is the phenotype that is dominant. In the flower example, it is the character red that is dominant over white. In humans, for instance, being pigmented is dominant over being albino, meaning that heterozygotes are pigmented and are not intermediate in phenotype between the two homozygotes. However, if one goes to the molecular level, the underlying enzyme defect concerns tyrosinase. When one looks at the inheritance of the character "tyrosinase activity", there is no dominance, the heterozygote being completely intermediate between the two homozygotes. This is an improper use of nomenclature that unfortunately even can be found in many genetics texts. --Crusio 20:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some Examples

An Allel would be the like the controller of game systems the comand the genes where to go.I don't have an example off the top of my head, but the defintion in the first sentence of the article points out that some definitions of Allele include variation at non-gene sequences. I double checked the fact with the NHGRI (http://www.genome.gov/glossary.cfm?key=allele see the real player voice over). I would suggest perhaps something about variation in promotor regions as was described so ably by Graft above. My defintion of an Allele is the captian of the genes telling them where to go.

What is the reasoning behind using capital I and i to stand for the different blood types and what is the reasoning for i to always match up with blood type O? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.176.81.1 (talk) 16:10, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The capital I is used for the dominant genes, while the lower case i is used for recessive. That's why blood type O is so rare. 18:49, 28 September 2009

Actualy, O is the most frequent blood type, despite being recessive to A and B. --Crusio (talk) 00:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unidentical copies?

I would like to ask about the following sentence:

"An organism in which the two copies of the gene are identical"

Can COPIES be unidentical? Is the term appropriate and correct?

Introduction - Parenthetic sentence

Should one start a paragraph with a sentence enclosed in parentheses? I have never seen this before. 06:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

2 Equations ?

There are two equations for the frequency of two alleles of a given gene (see Hardy-Weinberg principle).

Equation 1:

p+q=1

,

Equation 2:

p^{2}+2pq+q^{2}=1

This sounds very silly since Equation 1 clearly implies that equation 2 is also true. Does it make sense to say that the frequency of 2 alleles is predicted by 2 equations? Why not 3 with the third being $p^{3}+3p^{2}q+3pq^{2}+q^{3}=1$ ?

This is indeed a very muddled section. It mixes the frequency of certain alleles ( $p$ and $q$ ) with the alleles themselves. The main article on the Hardy-weinberg equilibrium is clearer and perhaps this whole paragraph should be deleted and redirect to that article. --Crusio 20:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how this can be true:

$p^{2}+2pq+2pr+q^{2}+2qr+r^{2}=1-(p^{2}+q^{2}+r^{2})=1$

Because

If $1-(p^{2}+q^{2}+r^{2})=1$ then $(p^{2}+q^{2}+r^{2})=0$

If $(p^{2}+q^{2}+r^{2})=0$ then $p=0,q=0,r=0$

If $p=0,q=0,r=0$ then $(p^{2}+2pq+2pr+q^{2}+2qr+r^{2})=0$

Am I missing something? 76.121.251.78 (talk) 01:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Types

This section is still rather muddled after I did some cleanup. I propose to delete it, thre is already a link to dominance and recessive in the opening paragraph. --Crusio (talk) 10:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about complete deletion but at the very least I think everything after the first paragraph in that section should be removed.--Woland (talk) 12:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disputed tag

I have placed a "disputed" tag on the article because, although many scientists speak about "dominant" or "recessive alleles", technically speaking, only traits are dominant/recessive. On the DNA level, all alleles of all genes act in an additive way without any dominance being present. An allele may be dominant/recessive for one trait, but not for another. An example is the albino allele, c. The albino trait is recessive as Cc individuals are pigmented. However, if you look at the underlying enzyme defect, Cc individuals are intermediate between CC and cc ones for tyrosinase activity. So for the character "tyrosinase activity" dominance is absent, but for the character "pigmentation" albino is recessive to pigmented. --Crusio (talk) 12:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

--I don't think this warrents the tag as this appears to be pretty minor and almost seems to be about semantics, so have now removed the tag. When I saw the tag I assumed there was a major error. It would probably be better to add this to the article. Any other comments? 194.83.139.177 (talk) 11:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above means that the definitions currently given in the article are wrong. What else justifies a "disputed" tag? I am reverting this. --Crusio (talk) 11:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are mistaken on two levels; one, the tag is not for such a small dispute, and two, you are wrong about your claim that the phenotype is what is recessive. An organism has only one phenotype. Provide a source that makes this distinction. Abductive (reasoning) 10:45, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here in a book with Lewontin as a coauthor, they use the terms in the usual manner [1]. Abductive (reasoning) 10:54, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here is Hartl's take on it [2]. Abductive (reasoning) 11:02, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, this incorrect usage has become a shorthand, like people studying KO mice, who find no difference with controls saying "my mouse has no phenotype". Google it, you'll find plenty of reputable geneticists who have said this. That doesn't make it correct, though (see DOI 10.1034/j.1601-183X.2002.10201.x). I have currently no time to continue this discussion. Just one citation: Gregor Mendal stated (as cited by Reeve, Encyclopedia of Genetics, p. 63): "The dominant character can have ..." No need to continue. Mendel defined dominance, without knowing anything about genes of alleles. He talked about characters (what we now call phenotypes). And look at my albino example above. Whether C or c is dominant or not, depends on what character you investigate. --Crusio (talk) 12:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest this be explained in a footnote to avoid breaking up the flow. The article is rather wanting in many respects. Abductive (reasoning) 12:49, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely! :-) --Crusio (talk) 13:22, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most organisms probably not diploid

I think the article should read most animals, or perhaps most multicellular organisms, but not most organisms, as most archaea and bacteria are not diploid, and they are arguably the most well represented (depending of course on your definition of species). 71.209.2.169 (talk) 19:26, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]