Tetrad (redirected from Tetrads)

tetrad

1. a group or series of four

2. the number four

3. Botany a group of four cells formed by meiosis from one diploid cell

4. Genetics a four-stranded structure, formed during the pachytene stage of meiosis, consisting of paired homologous chromosomes that have each divided into two chromatids

5. Chem an element, atom, group, or ion with a valency of four

6. Ecology a square of 2 × 2 km used in distribution mapping

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tetrad [′te‚trad]

(cell and molecular biology)

A group of four chromatids lying parallel to each other as a result of the longitudinal division of each of a pair of homologous chromosomes during the pachytene and later stages of the prophase of meiosis.

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Tetrad 

(1) A group of four haploid cells formed by meiosis from a single diploid cell. Tetrads are typical of plants. In mosses, fungi, and algae, such four-celled groups may remain for a long time within the membrane of the parent cell. By isolating the cells of the tetrad in these organisms, vegetative offspring may be obtained and the genetic division in each meiosis may be studied by means of tetrad analysis. Ordered arrangements of cells may occur in tetrads; the chromosome groups in the cells of such tetrads reflect the order in which the chromosomes of two successive meioses separate. These cells, called linear asci, are typical of some ascomycete fungi.

(2) In tetrad analysis, the four cultures obtained by the vegetative propagation of spores formed after the meiosis of a single diploid cell.

(3) A structure composed of four connected chromatids. It is observed in animal cells during the prophase of the first, or reductive, division of meiosis. Such tetrads are also called bivalents.

I. I. TOLSTORUKOV