Studied the hereditary characteristics of
corn and how these traits are passed down
through the generations and linked this to
changes in the plants’ chromosomes
Proved the genetic elements can
sometimes change position on a
chromosome, which causes genes to
become active or inactive
Discovered transposons
Ac and Ds
Additional experiments with the Ds locus
revealed that chromosome breakage at this
locus requires a second dominant
locus—the Ac locus
The Ac locus can initiate its own transposition
Ds chromosome breakage could be activated by an Ac
element that is at a different site or even on a different
chromosome
Also found that insertion of Ac and Ds could lead to
unstable mutations, but moving those transposons
from the mutated loci could restore the gene’s function
Found that depending on where they are inserted into a
chromosome, they can reversibly alter expression of
other genes
During her time at Cornell, McClintock developed staining techniques in
order to visualize maize chromosomes
Further refined these techniques to effectively discriminate between
each of the 10 maize chromosomes
Also helped identify all of the maize linkage groups (genes that are
inherited together because of their proximity on the same chromosome)
Demonstrated crossing-over at the
chromosomal level and showed that genetic
recombination involved the physical exchange
of chromosome segments (major contribution
to field of genetics)