Genetics
Key Words
Selective breeding – humans artificially select the plants or animals that are going to breed so that the genes for particular characteristics remain in the population.
Gene pool – the number of different alleles in a population.
Alleles – different versions of genes.
Genetic Engineering – the transfer of genes responsible for a desirable characteristic form one organism’s genome into another organism.
Vector – a virus or a bacterial plasmid.
Bacterial plasmid – a piece of circular DNA found in bacterial cells.
Genetically modified (GM) crops – crops that have had their genes modified.
Gene therapy – inserting working genes into people with inherited diseases.
Cloning – the process of producing genetically identical individuals of an organism either naturally or artificially.
Embryo transplants – animal sperm cells are taken from the parent and used to artificially fertilise an egg cell from a female. Cloned embryos are then implanted into a female.
Adult cell cloning – a nucleus in an unfertilised egg cell is swapped for a nucleus in an adult body cell. It is then implanted into a womb of an adult female.
Speciation – populations of the same species change enough to become reproductively isolated, development of a new species.
Alfred Russel Wallace – came up with the idea of natural selection.
Antibiotic-resistant – bacteria becomes less affected by a particular antibiotic.
Also see Hormonal coordination, Reproduction, Variation and evolution,
Links for Learning
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Bitesize: Selective Breeding
Bitesize: Genetic Engineering
Your Genome: Selective Breeding
Your Genome: What is a GMO?
Your Genome: What is Genetic Engineering?
Bitesize: Natural selection and evolution
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