College of Life Science, Northwest Normal University, 967 Anning East Road, Lanzhou, 730070, China.
Hereditas. 2022 Mar 26;159(1):19. doi: 10.1186/s41065-022-00232-1.
The historian studies revealed during Mendel's later research period when mainly focusing on the constant hybrid in Hieracium, he had to be intervened to conduct the controlled pollination experiments in Mirabilis jalapa. Two letters to Nageli recorded the experimental aim was to disprove Darwin's opinion regarding three pollen grains required for one fertilization (note: that could completely destroy his previous discovery of segregation inheritance in variable hybrid in Pisum, for it was expressed in a mathematical equation). The experimental results of single pollen grain pollination confirmed the referenced view of one pollen cell uniting one egg cell in plant fertilization; the further pedigree introduction of the single and of the designed two pollen grain experiment succeeded in exemplifying that one hereditary factor carried by one gamete (pollen cell or egg cell) can independently transmit a trait to offspring. Here we coined the observation as the Gamete Theory of Inheritance. Remarkably, in contrast with the bulked pollination experiment, in this system, Mendel could easily manipulate a hereditary factor by merely taking a gamete as a carrier. Then, Mendel's work in M. jalapa together with the previous Pisum study was able to jointly suppport his second lecture content that regarded "gamete formation, fertilization, and seed development" and also regarded hereditary factors in the processes. All in all, the 1866 paper was published during a rapid burst of interest in hybrid species likely induced by Darwin, and Mendel's attempts at accommodation of the two incompatible inheritances of segregation in variable hybrids versus of nonsegregation in constant hybrids might be responsible for some historical controversies when understanding his discovery of inheritance.
历史学家的研究揭示，在孟德尔后期主要专注于 Hieracium 中的恒杂交种的研究期间，他不得不被干预进行 Mirabilis jalapa 的控制授粉实验。两封写给 Nageli 的信记录了实验的目的是反驳达尔文关于一个花粉粒需要三个花粉粒才能受精的观点（注：这可能会完全破坏他之前在豌豆可变杂种中发现的分离遗传的发现，因为它用一个数学方程式表达）。单花粉粒授粉的实验结果证实了参考观点，即一个花粉细胞与植物受精中的一个卵细胞结合；单花粉粒和设计的两个花粉粒实验的进一步系谱引入成功地例证了一个遗传因子由一个配子（花粉细胞或卵细胞）携带，可以独立地将一个特征传递给后代。在这里，我们将观察结果称为配子遗传理论。值得注意的是，与大量授粉实验相比，在这个系统中，孟德尔可以通过仅仅将一个配子作为载体来轻松地操纵一个遗传因子。然后，孟德尔在 M. jalapa 的工作以及之前的豌豆研究能够共同支持他的第二个演讲内容，即“配子形成、受精和种子发育”，以及遗传因子在这些过程中的作用。总之，1866 年的论文是在达尔文引起的对杂种物种的兴趣迅速爆发期间发表的，孟德尔试图调和可变杂种中的分离遗传与恒杂交种中的非分离遗传的两种不兼容的遗传可能是理解他的遗传发现时产生一些历史争议的原因。
