Yay! Green Pea Seed Gene is Identified..whoot, whoot!

This is article is about how researches have discovered another gene that was manipulated by none other than Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel. If you do not know who Gregor Mendel is...well then you probably have not taken a biology class or you are just stupid. Anyways, Gregor Mendel was the first person to trace the characteristics of successive generations of a living thing. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns (laws of Mendelian inheritance). He took pea plants that vary in traits (height, color, shape, etc.) and counted the proportions of these traits in several generations of pea plants. Mendel concluded that these features must derive from genes, which he discovered were randomly divided between offspring.

After 141 years of research (geez louise that is a long time!), the gene that they uncovered was specifically the controlled the color of his peas'

seeds. This is the third gene they identified out of the seven genes Medel used in his experiment...so there are quite a few that remain a mystery. Hold up, you are probs asking: "how the poop did scientists discover this gene?" Well to answer that question, researchers identified the sequence of a gene common to several plant species; this gene was used to break down a green pigment molecule, eventually finding out that it matches Mendel's gene.

Researchers have also been trying to locate the sequence of a gene called staygreen (sgr) in the meadow grass, Festuca pratensis, in hopes of determining the sequence Mendel's gene for seed color. The team compared genetic markers specific to the sgr region of the grass's chromosome with the markers

on the corresponding portion of the rice genome, which contained 30 potential genes in that area, including one similar to other pigment-metabolizing proteins. Rice? Porque? They used rice because it is genetic similar to Festuca. Anyways, researchers picked out the location of the pea sgr sequence from pea plants that varied in their seed color in order to find out if it was equivalent to Mendel's gene. Sure enough, the pea version of sgr was always found in the same tiny part of the chromosome as Mendel's seed color gene. Now that scientist have the specific gene, they can begin their studies to figure out exactly what its functions are.

(Image on top right: Picture of Gregor Mendel, who is remembered as the "father of genetics" today.)

(Image on bottom left: A monohybrid cross example of Mendel's pea plant experiment. He crossed two yellow pea plants, both of which were heterozygous dominant, and they produced 3/4 yellow peas and 1/4 green peas.)

Article:

Gene Behind Mendel's Green Pea Seeds Finally Identified