In the 1940s and 1950s, Dr Barbara McClintock studied mosaic colour patterns in corn and discovered their unstable inheritance and the underlying mechanisms. In 1983 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for her discovery, and is now considered one of the most influential geneticists of the 20th century. (a) Name two synonymous names for the genetic elements that Dr McClintock discovered
(b) What can these genetic elements do, and what can the consequences be for a gene and for a host genome?
(c) Which gene function do these elements require for their activity, and what are the two classes that these elements can be assigned to, and how do these two classes function in a host genome? (d) Why did Dr McClintock initially find resistance to publish her findings and in the scientific community, to the point that she did not publish these for 20 years, and why were her ground-breaking research findings a paradigm shift in the end?
