All in the Family

This family photo (Figure 5.12.1) clearly illustrates an important point: children in a family resemble their parents and each other, but the children never look exactly the same, unless they are identical twins. Each of the daughters in the photo have inherited a unique combination of traits from the parents. In this concept, you will learn how this happens. It all begins with sex — sexual reproduction, that is.

Reproduction is the process by which organisms give rise to offspring. It is one of the defining characteristics of living things. Like many other organisms, human beings reproduce sexually. Sexual reproduction involves two parents. As you can see from Figure 5.12.2, in sexual reproduction, parents produce reproductive (sex) cells — called gametes — that unite to form an offspring. Gametes are haploid (or 1N) cells. This means they contain one copy of each chromosome in the nucleus. Gametes are produced by a type of cell division called meiosis, which is described in detail below. The process in which two gametes unite is called fertilization. The fertilized cell that results is referred to as a zygote. A zygote is a diploid (or 2N) cell, which means it contains two copies of each chromosome. Thus, it has twice the number of chromosomes as a gamete.

The process that produces haploid gametes is called meiosis. Meiosis is a type of cell division in which the number of chromosomes is reduced by half. It occurs only in certain special cells of an organism. During meiosis, homologous (paired) chromosomes separate, and four haploid cells form that have only one chromosome from each pair. The diagram (Figure 5.12.3) gives an overview of meiosis.

As you can see in the meiosis diagram, two cell divisions occur during the overall process, producing a total of four haploid cells from one parent cell. The two cell divisions are called meiosis I and meiosis II. Meiosis I begins after DNA replicates during interphaseno post. Meiosis II follows meiosis I without DNA replicating again. Both meiosis I and meiosis II occur in four phases, called prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase. You may recognize these four phases from mitosis, the division of the nucleus that takes place during routine cell division of eukaryotic cells.

Meiosis I- Increasing genetic variation

The phases of Meiosis I are:

1. Prophase I: The nuclear envelope begins to break down, and the chromosomes condense. Centrioles start moving to opposite poles of the cell, and a spindle begins to form. Importantly, homologous chromosomes pair up, which is unique to prophase I. In prophase of mitosis and meiosis II, homologous chromosomes do not form pairs in this way. During prophase I, crossing-over occurs. The significance of crossing-over is discussed below.
2. Metaphase I: Spindle fibres attach to the paired homologous chromosomes. The paired chromosomes line up along the equator of the cell, randomly aligning in a process called independent alignment.  The significance of independent alignment is discussed below. This occurs only in metaphase I. In metaphase of mitosis and meiosis II, it is sister chromatids that line up along the equator of the cell.
3. Anaphase I: Spindle fibres shorten, and the chromosomes of each homologous pair start to separate from each other. One chromosome of each pair moves toward one pole of the cell, and the other chromosome moves toward the opposite pole.
4. Telophase I and Cytokinesis: The spindle breaks down, and new nuclear membranes form. The cytoplasm of the cell divides, and two haploid daughter cells result. The daughter cells each have a random assortment of chromosomes, with one from each homologous pair. Both daughter cells go on to meiosis II.

Meiosis II- Halfing the DNA

The phases of Meiosis II are:

1. Prophase II: The nuclear envelope breaks down, and the spindle begins to form in each haploid daughter cell from meiosis I. The centrioles also start to separate.
2. Metaphase II: Spindle fibres line up the sister chromatids of each chromosome along the equator of the cell.
3. Anaphase II: Sister chromatids separate and move to opposite poles.
4. Telophase II and Cytokinesis: The spindle breaks down, and new nuclear membranes form. The cytoplasm of each cell divides, and four haploid cells result. Each cell has a unique combination of chromosomes.

Sexual Reproduction and Genetic Variation

“It takes two to tango” might be a euphemism for sexual reproduction. Requiring two individuals to produce offspring, however, is also the main drawback of this way of reproducing, because it requires extra steps — and often a certain amount of luck — to successfully reproduce with a partner. On the other hand, sexual reproduction greatly increases the potential for genetic variation in offspring, which increases the likelihood that the resulting offspring will have genetic advantages. In fact, each offspring produced is almost guaranteed to be genetically unique, differing from both parents and from any other offspring. Sexual reproduction increases genetic variation in a number of ways:

• When homologous chromosomes pair up during meiosis I, crossing-over can occur. Crossing-over is the exchange of genetic material between non-sister chromatids of homologous chromosomes. It results in new combinations of genes on each chromosome. This is called recombination. You can see how it happens in the figure to the right.
• When cells divide during meiosis, homologous chromosomes are randomly distributed to daughter cells, and different chromosomes segregate independently of each other. This is called independent alignment. It results in gametes that have unique combinations of chromosomes.  You can see how it happens in Figure 5.12.7.
• In sexual reproduction, two gametes unite to produce an offspring. But which two of the millions of possible gametes will it be? This is a matter of chance, and it’s obviously another source of genetic variation in offspring.

With all of this recombination of genes, there is a need for a new set of vocabulary.  Remember, that sister chromatids are two identical pieces of DNA connected at a centromere.  Once crossing over has occured, we can no longer call them sister chromatids since they are no longer identical; we term them dyads.  In addition, once crossing over has occurred, the pair of homologous chromosomes can be referred to as tetrads.  

All of these mechanisms — crossing over, independent assortment, and the random union of gametes — work together to result in an amazing range of potential genetic variation. Each human couple, for example, has the potential to produce more than 64 trillion genetically unique children. No wonder we are all different!

Meiosis (updated), Amoeba Sisters, 2017.

Gametogenesis

At the end of meiosis, four haploid cells have been produced, but the cells are not yet gametes. The cells need to develop before they become mature gametes capable of fertilization. The development of haploid cells into gametes is called gametogenesis. It differs between males and females.

• A gamete produced by a male is called a sperm, and the process that produces a mature sperm is called spermatogenesis. During this process, a sperm cell grows a tail and gains the ability to “swim,” like the human sperm cell shown in Figure 5.12.8.
• A gamete produced by a female is called anegg or ovum, and the process that produces a mature egg is called oogenesis, during which just one functional egg is produced. The other three haploid cells that result from meiosis are called polar bodies, and they disintegrate. The single egg is a very large cell, as you can see from the human egg also shown in Figure 5.12.8.

Figure 5.12.1

Family portrait by loly galina on Unsplash is used under the Unsplash License (https://unsplash.com/license).

Figure 5.12.2

Human Life Cycle by Christine Miller is used under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) license.

Figure 5.12.3

MajorEventsInMeiosis_variant_int by PatríciaR (internationalization) on Wikimedia Commons is used and adapted by Christine Miller. This image in the public domain. (Original image from NCBI; original vector version by Jakov.)

Figure 5.12.4

Meiosis 1/ Meiosis Stages by Ali Zifan on Wikimedia Commons is used and adapted by Christine Miller under a  CC BY-SA 4.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) license.

Figure 5.12.5

Meiosis 2/ Meiosis Stages by Ali Zifan on Wikimedia Commons is used and adapted by Christine Miller under a  CC BY-SA 4.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) license.

Figure 5.12.6

Crossover/ Figure 17 02 01 by CNX OpenStax on Wikimedia Commons is used under a CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) license.

Figure 5.12.7

Independent_assortment by Mtian20 on Wikimedia Commons is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) license.

Figure 5.12.8

sperm fertilizing egg by AndreaLaurel on Flickr is used under a CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/) license.

References

Amoeba Sisters. (2017, July 11). Meiosis (updated). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzDMG7ke69g&feature=youtu.be

Amoeba Sisters. (2018, May 31). Mitosis vs meiosis comparison. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrKdz93WlVk&feature=youtu.be

CrashCourse, (2012, April 23). Meiosis: Where the sex starts – Crash Course Biology #13. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCLmR9-YY7o&feature=youtu.be

OpenStax CNX. (2016, May 27). Figure 1 Crossover may occur at different locations on the chromosome. In OpenStax, Biology (Section 17.2). http://cnx.org/contents/185cbf87-c72e-48f5-b51e-f14f21b5eabd@10.53.