Expert: Walter Hintz - 3/24/2006

Question
Mr. Hintz,
I am currently taking a college level biology class and I have two questions about genes.

How are genes replicated?

How are genes sorted during sexual reproduction?

Thank you for your time,
Anthony

Answer
Hi Anthony:  This is tough to answer because I do not know how much you already know about DNA and meiosis.  I will have to summerize it for you so you can do a little checking and then get back to me if yopu are havinga problem understanding something.
 Genes are made up of DNA and DNA is made up of compounds called nucleotides.  They are Adenine,thymine,guanine and cytosine (A,T,G,C)  They connect together in two chains and in this fsahion A-T T-A C-G and G-C  They cannot connect in any other way  This is called the base pairing rule.  During replication the chains separate and new nucleotides move in according to the base pairing rule creating duplicate chromosomes (and genes)

Genes are paired for genetic traits, one from each parent.  During mitosis they are all duplicated like I stated above but in sperm and egg formation they separate going to separate cells. This is meiosis