Target Exam

CUET

Subject

Biology

Chapter

Principles of Inheritance and Variation

Question:

Who discovered that the behaviour of chromosomes was parallel to the behaviour of genes?

Options:

Sutton and Boveri

de Vries and Correns

Mendel

Thomas Hunt Morgan

Correct Answer:

Sutton and Boveri

Explanation:

The correct answer is Option (1) → Sutton and Boveri

By 1902, the chromosome movement during meiosis had been worked out. Walter Sutton and Theodore Boveri noted that the behaviour of chromosomes was parallel to the behaviour of genes and used chromosome movement to explain Mendel’s laws . The important things to remember are that chromosomes as well as genes occur in pairs. The two alleles of a gene pair are located on homologous sites on homologous chromosomes. Sutton and Boveri argued that the pairing and separation of a pair of chromosomes would lead to the segregation of a pair of factors they carried. Sutton united the knowledge of chromosomal segregation with Mendelian principles and called it the chromosomal theory of inheritance.

Boveri and Sutton's chromosome theory of inheritance stated that genes are found at specific locations on chromosomes, and that the behavior of chromosomes during meiosis can explain Mendel’s laws of inheritance.

However, it was Thomas Hunt Morgan, who studied fruit flies and provided the first strong confirmation of the chromosome theory as proposed by Boveri and Sutton. Using fruit flies as a model organism, Thomas Hunt Morgan and his group at Columbia University showed that genes, strung on chromosomes, are the units of heredity. They showed that chromosomes carry genes, discovered genetic linkage - the fact that genes are arrayed on linear chromosomes - and described chromosome recombination.

In 1933, Morgan received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for helping establish the chromosome theory of inheritance.