ABSTRACT
We are addressing the fi rst of the three big questions that we have asked about the role of genes as units of inheritance. We wish to understand how a complete set of genes is passed on to the daughter cells when the parent cell divides. In the previous chapter we studied the process by which DNA molecules are replicated, but we realize that DNA replication on its own does not explain how genes are inherited. We still have to understand how the DNA molecules resulting from replication are passed on to the daughters when the cell divides. If the cell has more than one DNA molecule, how does it make sure that each daughter cell receives one copy of each of these molecules, and not, by mistake, two copies of one molecule and maybe no copies of another?
