Abstract
The human genome sequence report published in the year 2000 followed the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws of biological inheritance a hundred years earlier. The intervening period has been marked by major discoveries which have become landmarks in the history of genetics. The present paper recounts some of these landmark discoveries. The treatment is not exhaustive; rather an attempt has been made to show how one important finding followed another in rapid succession, as important questions were asked at each stage. This only indicates the intense interest of a large number of scientists from different disciplines as the young science started to unfold its potential as an integrating force in biology.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Avery O. T., MacLeod C. M. and McCarty M. 1944. Studies on the chemical nature of the substance inducing transformation of pneumococcal types: Induction of transformation by a deoxyribonucleic acid fraction isolated from pneumococcus type III. J. Exp. Med., 79: 137.
Bateson W. 1909. Mendel’s Principles of Heredity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U. K.
Beadle G. W. and Tatum E. L. 1941. Genetic control of biochemical reaction in Neurospora, Proc. Natl. Acad Sci., 27: 499.
Benzer S. 1955. Fine structure of a genetic region in bacteriophage. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 41: 344.
Botstein D., White R. L., Sholnick M. and Davies R. W. 1980. Construction of a genetic linkage map in man using restriction fragment polymorphism. Amer. J. Human Genetics, 32: 314.
Boveri T. 1902. Uber mehrpolige Mitosen als Mittel zur Analyse der Zelkerns. Verh. phys. Med. Gesellsch. Wurzburg. 35: 67.
Brenner S., Stretton A. O. W, and Kaplan S. 1965. Genetic code: The “non-sense” triplets for chain termination and their suppression. Nature, 206: 994.
Bridges C. B. 1916. Nondisjuction as a proof of the chromosome theory of heredity. Genetics, 1: 107.
Britten R. J. and Kohne D. E. 1968. Repeated sequences in DNA. Science, 161: 359.
Chargaff E. 1950. Chemical specificity of the nucleic acids and mechanism of their enzymatic degradation. Experientia, 6: 201.
Correns C. 1900. G. Mendel Regel uber das Verhalten der Nachkommenschft der Rassenbastarde. Ber. deutsch. botan. Gesellsch, 18: 158. English translation available in The Birth of Genetics, published as a supplement to 1950 volume of Genetics, 33-41.
Creighton M. R. and McClintock B. 1931. A correlation of cytological and genetical crossing over in Zea mays. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 17: 485.
Crick F. H. C., Barnett L, Brenner S. and Watts-Tobin R. J. 1961. General nature of the genetic code for proteins. Nature, 192: 1227.
Darlington C. D. 1965. Recent Advances in Cytology. Churchill, London.
Darwin C. 1859. The Origin of Species, John Muray, London, U. K.
De Vries H. 1900. Sur la loi de disjoinetion des hybrids, C. R. Acad. Sci. (Paris), 130: 845. (See English translation in The Birth of Genetics, Suppl. Genetics, 1950, volume 30-32.
Dobzhansky Th. 1970. Genetics of the Evolutionary Process. Columbia University Press, New York.
Doolittle W. F. and Sapienza. 1980. Selfish genes, the phenotype paradigm, and genome evolution. Nature, 284: 601–603.
East E. M. 1916. Studies on size inheritance in Nicotiana. Genetica, 1: 164.
Fisher R. A. 1930. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Clarendon Press, Oxford, U. K.
Freeze E. 1959. The difference between spontaneous and base-analogue induced mutations of phage T4. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 45: 622.
Freese E. 1963. Molecular Mechanisms of Mutations. In: Molecular Genetics, Part 1, (ed. ) J. H. Taylor, Academic Press, New York, pp. 207.
Gilbert W. and Muller-Hill B. 1965. Isolation of the lac repressor. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 58: 2415.
Garrod A. E. 1909. Inborn Errors of Metabolism. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, U. K.
Griffith F. 1928. The significance of pneumococcal types. J. Hygiene, 27: 113.
Haidane J. B. S. 1932. The Causes of Evolution, Longman, London.
Hershey A. D. and Chase M. 1952. Independent functions of viral protein and nucleic acid in growth of bacteriophage. J. Gen. Physiol., 36: 39.
International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium. 2001. Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome. Nature, 409: 860.
Jacob F. and Monod J. 1961. Genetic regulatory mechanisms in the synthesis of proteins. J. Mol. Biol., 3: 318.
Jain H. K. 1980. Incidental DNA. Nature, 288: 647.
Johannsen W. 1909. Elemente der Exakten Erblichkeitslehre, Fisher, Jena 516 pp. Classic Papers in Genetics, (ed. ) Peters J. A., Prentice Hall, 1959.
Khorana H. G., Bochi H., Ghosh H., Gupta H., Jacob F., Kossel T. M., Morgan R., Narang R., Ohtsuka S. A. and Wells R. D. 1967. Polynucleotide synthesis and the genetic code. Cold. Symp. Harb. Symp. Quant. Biol., 31: 39.
Lederberg J. and Tatum E. L. 1946. Gene recombination in E. coli, Nature, 158: 558.
Lindergren C. C. 1993. The genetics of Neurospora III. Pure bred stocks and crossing over in N. crassa, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, 60: 133.
Luria S. E. and Delbruck M. 1943. Mutation of bacteria from virus sensitivity to virus resistance. Genetics, 28. 491.
Mather K. 1943. Polygenic inheritance and natural selection. Biol. Rev., 18: 32.
McClintock B. 1951. Chromosome organization and gene expression. Cold Spring Harb. Symp., 16: 13–47.
McClung C. E. 1901. Notes on the accessory chromosome. Anat. Anz., 20: 220.
Mendel G. J. 1866. Versuche uber Pflanzenhybriden. Verh. Naturforsch. Ver. Brunn., 4: 3–47. Following English translation are available: J. Roy. Hort. Soc, 26; Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, Gabriel and Fogel, 1955; Classic Papers in Genetics, (ed. ) Peters J. A., Prentice Hall, 1959.
Meselson M. and Stahl F. W. 1958. The replication of DNA in E. coli. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 44: 671.
Morgan T. H. 1910. Sex limited inheritance in Drosophila. Science, 32: 120.
Morgan T. H. and Bridges C. B. 1916. Sex-linked inheritance in Drosophila. Carnegie Inst. Wash. Publ. No. 237: 1.
Muller H. J. 1927. Artificial transmutation of the gene. Science, 66: 84.
Muller H. J. 1962. Studies in Genetics. The Selected Papers of H. J. Muller. Indiana University Press, with a foreword by Joshua Lederberg and a tribute to Muller as a Teacher by G. Pontecurvo.
Nirenberg M. W. and Matthei J. H. 1961. The dependence of cell-free protein synthesis in E. coli upon naturally occurring or synthetic polyribonucleotides. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 47: 1588.
Nirenberg M. W. and Leder P. 1964. RNA codewords and protein synthesis: The effect of trinucleotides upon the binding of sRNA to ribosomes. Science, 145: 1399.
Orgel L. E. and Crick F. H. C. 1980. Selfish DNA: The ultimate parasite. Nature, 284: 604–607.
Rich Alexander. 1995. The nucleic acids. A backward glance. In: DNA: The Double Helix. (ed. ) Donald A. Chambers, The New York Academy of Sciences, pp. 97–142.
Sarabhai A., Stretton A. D. W., Brenner S. and Bolle A. 1964. Colinearity of the gene with polypeptide chain. Nature, 201: 13.
Smith H. O. 1979. Nucleotide sequence specificity of restriction endonucleases. Science, 205: 455–462.
Sturtevant A. H. 1913. The linear arrangement of sex-linked factors in Drosophila as shown by their mode of association. Exp. Zool, 14: 43.
Sutton W. S. 1902. The Chromosomes in heredity. Biol. Bull., 4: 231.
Taylor J. H., Woods P. S. and Hughes W. I. 1957. The organisation and duplication of chromosomes as revealed by autoradiographic studies using tritium labelled thymidine. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, 45: 122.
Tschermak E. 1900. Ueber kunstliche Kreuzung bei Pisum sativum. Zeits. Landw. Verschsw. Oesterr., 3. Heft 5. English translation in The Birth of Genetics, supplement to 1950. (volume 35) of Genetics.
Venter J. C. et al. 2001. The sequence of the human genome. Science, 291: 1304.
Watson J. D. and Crick F. H. C. 1953a. A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature, 171: 131.
Watson J. D. and Crick F. H. C. 1953b. Genetical implications of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid. Nature, 171: 964.
Wilkins M. H. F., Stokes A. R. and Wildon H. R. 1953. Molecular structure of deoxypentose nucleic acids. Nature, 171: 738.
Wilson E. B. 1905. The chromosomes in relation to the determination of sex in insects. Science, 22: 500–502.
Witkin E. M. 1969. The role of DNA repair and recombination in mutagenesis. Proc. XII Intern. Congr. Genetics, 3: 225.
Wright S. 1951. Genetic structure of populations. Ann. Eugenics, 15: 323–354.
Wright S. 1978. Evolution and the Genetics of Populations, Vol. 4., Variability within and among natural population. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Yanofsky C. 1960. The tryptophan synthetase systems. Bact. Rev., 24: 221.
Yanofsky C., Horn V. and Thorpe D. 1964. Protein structure relationships revealed by mutational analysis. Science, 146: 1593.
Yanofsky C., Cox E. C. and Horn V. 1966. The unusual specificity of an E. coli mutator gene. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 55: 274–281.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jain, H.K. (2004). Hundred Years of Genetics: Revisiting some of the Landmarks. In: Jain, H.K., Kharkwal, M.C. (eds) Plant Breeding. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1040-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1040-5_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-3773-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1040-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive