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Inheritance 2

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26 views8 pages

Inheritance 2

Yay

Uploaded by

kirika.pernelle
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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INHERITANCE 2

How to construct Punnett squares

• Determine the parental genotypes

• Select a letter that has a clearly different lower case, for example: Aa, Bb, Dd

• Split the alleles for each parent and add them to the Punnett square around the outside

• Fill in the middle four squares of the Punnett square to work out the possible genetic combinations
in the offspring

• You may be asked to comment on the ratio of different allele combinations in the offspring,
calculate a percentage chances of offspring showing a specific characteristic or just determine the
phenotypes of the offspring

• Completing a Punnett square allows you to predict the probability of different outcomes from
monohybrid crosses

IDENTIFYING AN UNKNOWN GENOTYPE

• Breeders can use a test cross to find out the genotype of an organism showing the dominant
phenotype

• This involves crossing the unknown individual with an individual showing the recessive phenotype
– if the individual is showing the recessive phenotype, then its genotype must be homozygous
recessive

• By looking at the ratio of phenotypes in the offspring, we can tell whether the unknown individual
is homozygous dominant or heterozygous

A plant breeder has a tall plant of unknown genotype. How can they find out whether it is
homozygous dominant or heterozygous?’
• If the tall plant is homozygous dominant, all offspring produced will be tall

• If the tall plant is heterozygous, half the offspring will be tall and the other half will be short

FAMILY PEDIGREES

• Family pedigree diagrams are usually used to trace the pattern of inheritance of a specific
characteristic (usually a disease) through generations of a family

• This can be used to work out the probability that someone in the family will inherit the genetic
disorder
• Males are indicated by the square shape and females are represented by circles

• Affected individuals are red and unaffected are blue

• Horizontal lines between males and females show that they have produced children (which are
shown underneath each couple)

• The family pedigree above shows:

 both males and females are affected


 every generation has affected individuals
 that there is one family group that has no affected parents or children
 the other two families have one affected parent and affected children as well

CODOMINANCE

• Some genes have alleles that are equally dominant and so are both expressed equally in the
phenotype

• This is known as codominance

• Both codominant alleles are shown with upper case letters in genetic diagrams, but the letters
used are different

• For example, feather colour in hens may be white, black or speckled (it has both white

feathers and black feathers)


• The alleles can be shown as W for white and B for black

• There are three possible genotypes: WW, BB and BW

• There are also three possible phenotypes: WW = white, BB = black, and BW = speckled

INHERITANCE OF BLOOD GROUP


• The parent with blood group A has the genotype IAI O

• The parent with the blood group B has the genotype IBI O

• We know these are their genotypes (as opposed to both being homozygous) as they are able to
produce a child with blood group O and so the child must have inherited an allele for group O from
each parent

• Parents with these blood types have a 25% chance of producing a child with blood type O
INHERITANCE OF SEX

• Sex, or gender, is determined by an entire chromosome pair (as opposed to most other
characteristics that are just determined by one or a number of genes)

• Females have the sex chromosomes XX

• Males have the sex chromosomes XY

• As only a father can pass on a Y chromosome, he is responsible for determining the gender of the
child
SEX-LINKED CHARACTERISTICS

• When alleles that control a particular characteristic are found on the sex chromosomes, we
describe the inheritance that results as ‘sex linked’

• In almost all cases, there are only alleles on the X chromosome as the Y chromosome is much
smaller

• Because males only have one X chromosome, they are much more likely to show sexlinked
recessive conditions (such as red-green colour blindness and haemophilia)

• Females, having two copies of the X chromosome, are likely to inherit one dominant allele that
masks the effect of the recessive allele

• A female with one recessive allele masked in this way is known as a carrier; she doesn’t have the
disease, but she has a 50% chance of passing it on to her offspring

• If that offspring is a male, he will have the disease

• The results of a cross between a normal male and a female who is a carrier for colour blindness is
as follows:

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