Pedigrees
We can use controlled breeding of plants and animals for
genetic research, however breeding experiments for humans
are of course not ethical. Instead, geneticists collect as much
information as they can, and create a pedigree.
Pedigree: a type of flowchart that uses symbols to show the
inheritance patterns of traits in a family over many
generations. Often genotypes can be determined based on
these patterns.
Example questions:
1. How many males are present? ______
2. How many females? ______
3. How many females show the trait being
studied? ______
4. What is the sex of offspring III-9? ______
5. How many offspring did the generation I
parents have? ______
Types of Inheritance Patterns
Autosomal inheritance: the inheritance of traits determined by genes on the autosomal chromosomes.
1) Autosomal Dominant: the inheritance of a dominant phenotype, whose gene is on an autosomal chromosome.
Why is this not Recessive?
● The disease occurs in three consecutive
generations, this never happens with recessive traits.
Why is this not Sex-linked?
● The disease is passed from the father (II-3) to the
son (III-5), this never happens with X-linked traits.
● Males and females are affected, with roughly the
same probability.
2) Autosomal Recessive: the inheritance of a recessive phenotype whose gene is on an autosomal chromosome.
Notice:
● Males and females are equally likely to be affected.
● The trait is characteristically found in siblings, not parents
of affected or the offspring of affected.
● Consanguineous mating increases probability
3) Sex-linked recessive: the inheritance of a recessive phenotype whose gene is on an X chromosome.
Notice:
● The disease is never passed from father to son.
● Males are much more likely to be affected than females.
● Affected males are related through their mothers.
PRACTICE:
Create the following pedigree: Red-green colour-blindness is a sex-linked recessive trait. A colour-blind man marries a
woman with normal vision. They have a colour-blind son, followed by a normal daughter.
a) Draw a proper pedigree showing the phenotypes of the parents and children. A key must be included.
b) What are the genotypes of the parents?
