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Published March 1939 | public
Journal Article

Physiological Aspects of Genetics

Beadle, G. W.

Abstract

While recognizing that all of genetics must have a physiological basis--and ultimately a physico-chemical one-geneticists for many years have been concerned largely with the numerical and geometrical aspects of heredity. Within recent years, however there has been an evident and growing interest in problems that have to do with the relation of hereditary mechanisms and hereditary units to other branches of biology. A surprisingly large number of specific physiological reactions are now known to be under the control of genes. As an example, Trimble & Keeler have verified and extended earlier observations on differences in nitrogen metabolism in dogs. Most breeds of dogs excrete only a small amount of uric acid (0.2 to 0.4 per cent of the total urinary nitrogen). Individuals of the Dalmatian breed, however, excrete less nitrogen as allantoin and more as uric acid (2 to 3 per cent of the total nitrogen). Trimble & Keeler have verified the earlier suggestion of Onslow that high uric acid excretion is differentiated from low uric acid excretion by a single recessive gene. The geneticist is, in fact, confident that all processes characteristic of living organisms are ultimately gene-controlled.

Additional Information

© 1939 Annual Reviews. Received October 6, 1938. This review is largely limited to work published during 1937 and early 1938. No attempt has been made to cite all the literature, even on those particular aspects of the subject chosen for review.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023