Genetics For Dummies

Name: Genetics For Dummies
Price: 15 USD
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ISBN: 9781394210190

by Rene Fester Kratz, Lisa Spock

4th Edition

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

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Book Details

Print ISBN	9781394210190
eText ISBN	9781394210206
Publisher	John Wiley & Sons
Publishing Year	2023
Edition	4th Edition
Language	English
Pages	416

Genetics For Dummies, 4th Edition provides an accessible entry point to biological inheritance for students taking a college-level genetics course as well as genetically curious readers. The volume clarifies how genetic material functions within living organisms, connecting underlying molecular processes to observable physical traits. By establishing clear concepts early on, the text helps readers interpret classical genetic models and contemporary genomic discoveries.

The thematic progression moves from basic cell biology into Gregor Mendel's laws of inheritance and the mechanics of complex traits. Readers examine the structural properties of DNA alongside the fundamental steps of nucleic acid replication. Further sections outline how cellular machinery executes gene expression through RNA transcription and protein translation, demonstrating how coded instructions guide cellular activity.

Beyond molecular mechanisms, the text covers real-world genomic topics, including non-invasive prenatal testing, ancestry exploration, and techniques for tracing human history across populations. These sections demonstrate how genetic analysis applies to personal health decisions and demographic research. The publication offers a structured reference for biological sciences students seeking a functional overview of foundational and applied genetics.

Chapter Introduction: Introduction
- • About This Book
- • Foolish Assumptions
- • Icons Used in This Book
- • Beyond This Book
- • Where to Go from Here
Chapter 1: Welcome to Genetics: Just About Everyone Loves a Good Pair of Genes
- • Unwrapping Life’s Secrets
- • Classical Genetics: Studying How Traits Are Transmitted within Families
- • Molecular Genetics: Diving into DNA Science
- • Population Genetics: Studying the Genetics of Groups
- • Quantitative Genetics: Exploring the Heredity of Complex Traits
Chapter 2: Basic Cell Biology
- • Entering the World of the Cell
- • Cells without a nucleus
- • Cells with a nucleus
- • Exploring Your DNA, Chromosomes, and Genes
- • Examining the basics of chromosomes
- • Counting out chromosomes
- • Examining chromosome anatomy
- • Finding your genes
- • Mitosis: Splitting Up
- • Step 1: Time to grow
- • G1 phase
- • S phase
- • G2 phase
- • Step 2: Dividing up the chromosomes
- • Prophase
- • Metaphase
- • Anaphase
- • Telophase
- • Step 3: The big divide
- • Meiosis: Making Cells for Sexual Reproduction
- • Meiosis I
- • Find your partner
- • Recombining makes you unique
- • Partners divide
- • Meiosis II
- • Meiosis in the human body
Chapter 3: Visualize Peas: Discovering the Laws of Inheritance
- • Gardening with Gregor Mendel
- • Speaking the Language of Inheritance
- • Simplifying Inheritance
- • Establishing dominance
- • Segregating alleles
- • Declaring independence
- • Predicting with Punnetts
- • Finding Unknown Alleles
- • Applying Basic Probability to the Likelihood of Inheritance
- • Solving Genetics Problems
- • Deciphering a monohybrid cross
- • Tackling a dihybrid cross
Chapter 4: Law Enforcement: Mendel’s Laws Applied to Complex Traits
- • Dominant Alleles Rule...Sometimes
- • Blending in with incomplete dominance
- • Keeping it fair with codominance
- • Hanging back with incomplete penetrance
- • Alleles Causing Complications
- • More than two alleles
- • Lethal alleles
- • Making Life More Complicated
- • When genes interact
- • Genes in hiding
- • One gene with many phenotypes
- • Genes linked together
- • Uncovering More Exceptions to Mendel’s Laws
- • Epigenetics
- • Genomic imprinting
- • Anticipation
- • Environmental effects
Chapter 5: DNA: The Pattern for Life
- • Chemical Ingredients of DNA
- • Covering the bases
- • Adding a spoonful of sugar and a little phosphate
- • Assembling the Double Helix: The Structure of DNA
- • Starting with one: Forming the backbone
- • Putting the double in double helix
- • Examining Different Varieties of DNA
- • Nuclear DNA
- • Mitochondrial DNA
- • Chloroplast DNA
- • Digging into the History of DNA
- • Discovering DNA
- • Obeying Chargaff’s rules
- • Hard feelings and the helix: Franklin, Wilkins, Watson, and Crick
Chapter 6: Chromosomes: The Big Picture
- • Packaging the Double Helix
- • Anatomy of a Chromosome
- • Two Chromosomes Are Better than One (or Three)
- • Sex Chromosomes: Is It a Boy or Girl?
- • Sex determination in humans
- • The very important X
- • The not very significant Y
- • Coping with X and Y inequality
- • Sex determination in other organisms
- • Insects
- • Birds
- • Reptiles
Chapter 7: Replication: A Copy Machine for DNA
- • Unzipped: Creating the Pattern for More DNA
- • How DNA Copies Itself
- • Meeting the replication crew
- • Template DNA
- • Nucleotides
- • Enzymes
- • Splitting the helix
- • Priming the process
- • Leading and lagging
- • Joining all the pieces
- • Proofreading replication
- • Replication in Eukaryotes
- • Pulling up short: Telomeres
- • Finishing the job
- • How Circular DNAs Replicate
- • Theta
- • Rolling circle
- • D-loop
Chapter 8: Transcription: Getting Instructions from DNA
- • RNA: DNA’s Close Cousin
- • Using a slightly different sugar
- • Meeting a new base: Uracil
- • Stranded!
- • Transcription: Copying DNA’s Message into RNA’s Language
- • Getting ready to transcribe
- • Locating the gene
- • Locating the right strand
- • Gathering building blocks and enzymes
- • Initiation
- • Elongation
- • Termination
- • Post-transcription Processing
- • Adding cap and tail
- • Editing the message
Chapter 9: Translating the Genetic Code
- • Discovering the Good in a Degenerate
- • Considering the combinations
- • Framed! Reading the code
- • Almost universal
- • Meeting the Translating Team
- • Taking the Translation Trip
- • Initiation
- • Charge! Pairing tRNAs with amino acids
- • Putting the ribosome together
- • Elongation
- • Termination
- • Proteins Are Powerful
- • Recognizing radical groups
- • Giving the protein its shape
Chapter 10: Gene Expression: Finding the Right Tool for the Job
- • Getting Your Genes Under Control
- • To Be Expressed or Not To Be Expressed?
- • Regulating Eukaryotic Gene Expression: A Time and Place for Everything
- • Controlling Transcription Before It Starts
- • Regulation of Gene Transcription: Flipping the Switch
- • Proteins controlling transcription
- • Sequences controlling genes
- • Hormones controlling transcription
- • Post-transcriptional Control
- • Nip and tuck: RNA splicing
- • Shut up! RNA silencing
- • mRNA expiration dates
- • Gene Control Lost in Translation
- • Modifying where translation occurs
- • Modifying when translation occurs
- • Modifying the protein shape
- • Prokaryotic Gene Expression
- • Bacterial gene organization
- • Bacterial gene expression
Chapter 11: What Could Go Wrong: Changes in DNA Sequence
- • Heritable or Not Heritable?
- • Facing the Consequences of Sequence Variants
- • Sorting Out Terminology
- • The phenotypic effect of a DNA sequence change
- • The type of DNA sequence change
- • What Causes Sequence Variants?
- • Spontaneous mutation
- • Mismatches during replication
- • Strand slip-ups
- • Spontaneous chemical changes
- • Induced mutations
- • Chemical mutagens
- • Radiation
- • Evaluating Options for DNA Repair
Chapter 12: Chromosome Disorders: It’s All a Numbers Game
- • Chromosome Numbers: No More and No Less
- • Aneuploidy of the Autosomal Chromosomes
- • When chromosomes go missing
- • When too many chromosomes are left in
- • Down syndrome
- • Other autosomal trisomies
- • Aneuploidy of the Sex Chromosomes
- • Extra Xs
- • Extra Ys
- • Monosomy X
- • Exploring Variations in Chromosome Structure
- • Duplications
- • Deletions
- • Inversions
- • Translocations
- • Reciprocal translocations
- • Robertsonian translocations
- • Other things that go awry with chromosomes
- • Polyploidy
- • Mosaicism
- • How Chromosomes Are Studied
- • Big enough to see
- • Too small for the naked eye
- • Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing for Aneuploidy
Chapter 13: Taking a Closer Look at the Genetics of Cancer
- • Defining Cancer
- • Benign growths: Not always so harmless
- • Malignancies: Seriously scary results
- • Metastasis: Cancer on the move
- • Recognizing Cancer as a DNA Disease
- • Exploring the cell cycle and cancer
- • Genes gone wrong: Oncogenes
- • The good guys: Tumor-suppressor genes
- • Demystifying chromosome abnormalities
- • Breaking Down the Types of Cancers
- • Hereditary breast cancer
- • Hereditary colorectal cancer
Chapter 14: Genetic Counseling, Risk Assessment, and Genetic Testing
- • Getting to Know Genetic Counselors
- • Building and Analyzing a Family Tree
- • Autosomal Inheritance: No Differences Among the Sexes
- • Autosomal dominant traits and disorders
- • Autosomal recessive traits and disorders
- • Found on Sex Chromosomes: Sex-linked Inheritance
- • X-linked recessive traits
- • X-linked dominant traits
- • Y-linked traits
- • Sex-limited traits
- • Sex-influenced traits
- • Testing for Genetic Disorders
- • Diagnostic testing
- • Prenatal diagnosis
- • Carrier testing
- • Predictive and susceptibility testing
- • Preimplantation genetic diagnosis
- • Pharmacogenetic testing
Chapter 15: Treating Genetic Disorders and Using Genetics to Tailor Treatment
- • Alleviating Genetic Disease through Gene Therapy
- • Inserting Healthy Genes into the Picture
- • Finding Vehicles to Get Genes to Work
- • Viruses that join right in
- • Viruses that are a little standoffish
- • Progress on the Gene Therapy Front
- • Utilizing Genetic Information for Precision Medicine
- • Pharmacogenetics (and pharmacogenomics)
- • Cytochrome P450 and drug metabolism
- • Decreasing the risk of side effects of treatment
- • Increasing the effectiveness of treatment
Chapter 16: Tracing Human History and the Future of Populations
- • Genetic Variation Is Everywhere
- • Allele frequencies
- • Genotype frequencies
- • Breaking Down the Hardy-Weinberg Law of Population Genetics
- • Relating alleles to genotypes
- • Populations in balance
- • Violating the law
- • Mapping the Gene Pool
- • One big happy family
- • Ancestry testing
- • Uncovering the secret social lives of animals
- • Changing Forms over Time: The Genetics of Evolution
- • Genetic variation is key
- • Where new species come from
- • Growing the evolutionary tree
Chapter 17: Solving Mysteries Using DNA
- • Rooting through Your DNA to Find Your Identity
- • Investigating the Scene: Where’s the DNA?
- • Collecting biological evidence
- • Moving to the lab
- • Outlining the powerful PCR process
- • Constructing the DNA fingerprint
- • Employing DNA to Catch Criminals (And Free the Innocent)
- • Matching the evidence to the bad guy
- • Taking a second look at guilty verdicts
- • It’s All Relative: Finding Family
- • Paternity testing
- • Relatedness testing
- • Reconstructing individual genotypes
- • Bringing closure in times of tragedy
Chapter 18: DNA Sequencing: Decoding the Genome
- • Sequencing: Reading the Language of DNA
- • Identifying the players in DNA sequencing
- • Finding the message in sequencing results
- • Newer, cheaper, faster
- • Sequencing Your Way to the Human Genome
- • Trying on a Few Genomes
- • The yeast genome
- • The roundworm genome
- • The chicken genome
Chapter 19: Genetic Makeovers: Using Genetic Engineering to Change the Genome
- • Genetically Modified Organisms Are Everywhere
- • Old Genes in New Places
- • Making a transgenic (recombinant) organism
- • Making a transgene using recombinant DNA technology
- • Modifying the gene to reside in its new home
- • Looking at the GMO Menagerie
- • Transgenic animals
- • Transgenic insects
- • Transgenic bacteria
- • Transgenic Plants
- • Getting new genes into the plant
- • Exploring commercial applications
- • Weighing points of contention
- • Establishing food safety
- • Spreading escaped transgenes
- • Developing resistance
- • Damaging unintended targets
- • Addressing social justice
- • Changing the Blueprint: Gene Editing
- • CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing
- • Germline versus somatic gene editing
- • Discussing the ethics of gene editing
Chapter 20: Giving Ethical Considerations Their Due
- • Profiling Genetic Discrimination
- • Ordering Up Designer Babies
- • Ethical Issues Surrounding Genetic Testing
- • Informed consent
- • Patient autonomy
- • Privacy and confidentiality
- • Incidental findings
- • Direct-to-consumer testing
- • Practicing Safe Genetic Treatments
- • Genetic Property Rights
Chapter 21: Ten Hot Issues in Genetics
- • Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing
- • Whole Exome Sequencing
- • Whole Genome Sequencing
- • Stem Cell Research
- • The ENCODE Project
- • Proteomics
- • Gene Chips
- • Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance
- • Circumventing Mother Nature
- • Genetics from Afar
Chapter 22: Ten Pathways to a Career in Genetics
- • Laboratory Technicians
- • Graduate Student
- • Post-doctoral Fellows
- • Research Scientist
- • College or University Professor
- • Clinical Laboratory Director
- • Clinical Geneticist
- • Genetic Counselor
- • Genetic Counseling Assistant
- • Forensic Geneticist