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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Columbia, Missouri » Plant Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #170755
Title: PROOF OF PHYSICAL EXCHANGE OF GENES ON THE CHROMOSOMES

Author
item Coe Jr, Edward
item KASS, LEE - CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Submitted to: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/12/2004
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: In a concise, cornerstone study, Harriet Creighton (1909-2004) and Barbara McClintock (1902-1992) in 1931 answered definitively the question of whether the genes fall in order along the linear, physical structure of the chromosomes, by demonstrating "A correlation of cytological and genetical crossing-over in Zea mays." Today's central understanding of the genes as part of DNA macromolecules that extend from end to end of the chromosomes is based in the demonstration that the order of the genes matches the cytological; i.e., physical, linear order, with recombination dependent upon crossing-over of homologous chromosomes. This now-universal understanding was advanced from hypothesis to experimentally supported theory in 1931 by the experiments of Creighton and McClintock with maize.