Two parents who are each known to be carriers of an autosomal recessive allele have four children. None of the children has the recessive condition. What is the probability that one or more of the children is a carrier of the recessive allele?
2. Mendel's Laws of Inheritance
Probability and Genetics
- Open Question
- Open Question
A man and a woman are each heterozygous carriers of an autosomal recessive mutation of a disorder that is fatal in infancy. They both want to have multiple children, but they are concerned about the risk of the disorder appearing in one or more of their children. In separate calculations, determine the probabilities of the couple having five children with 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and all 5 children being affected by the disorder.
- Open QuestionDeep in a previously unexplored South American rain forest, a plant species was discovered with true-breeding varieties whose flowers were pink, rose, orange, or purple. A very astute plant geneticist made a single cross, carried to the F₂ generation, as shown:P₁: purple × pink F₁: all purple F₂: 27/64 purple16/64 pink12/64 rose9/64 orangeBased solely on these data, he proposed both a mode of inheritance for flower pigmentation and a biochemical pathway for the synthesis of these pigments.Carefully study the data. Create a hypothesis of your own to explain the mode of inheritance. Then propose a biochemical pathway consistent with your hypothesis. How could you test the hypothesis by making other crosses?
- Open Question
In a breed of domestic cattle, horns can appear on males and on females. Males and females can also be hornless. The following crosses are performed with parents from pure-breeding lines.
Explain the inheritance of this phenotype in cattle, and assign genotypes to all cattle in each cross. - Open Question
For a single dice roll, there is a 1/6 chance that any particular number will appear. For a pair of dice, each specific combination of numbers has a probability of 1/36 occurring. Most total values of two dice can occur more than one way. As a test of random probability theory, a student decides to roll a pair of six-sided dice 300 times and tabulate the results. She tabulates the number of times each different total value of the two dice occurs. Her results are the following:
Total Value of Two Dice Number of Times Rolled
2 7
3 11
4 23
5 36
6 42
7 53
8 40
9 38
10 30
11 12
12 8
TOTAL 300
The student tells you that her results fail to prove that random chance is the explanation for the outcome of this experiment. Is she correct or incorrect? Support your answer. - Open Question
Cross 1 shown in Figure 4.22 illustrates genetic complementation of flower-color mutants. The produced from this cross of two pure-breeding mutant parental plants are dihybrid (CcPp) and have wild-type flower color. If these F₁ are allowed to self-fertilize, what phenotypes are expected in the F₂ and what are the expected ratios of the phenotypes?
- Open QuestionLabrador retrievers may be black, brown (chocolate), or golden (yellow) in color (see chapter-opening photo). While each color may breed true, many different outcomes are seen when numerous litters are examined from a variety of matings where the parents are not necessarily true breeding. Following are just some of the many possibilities.(a) black x brown → all black(b) black x brown → 1/2 black1/2 brown(c) black x brown → 3/4 black1/4 golden(d) black x golden → all black(e) black x golden → 4/8 golden3/8 black1/8 brown(f) black x golden → 2/4 golden1/4 black1/4 brown(g) brown x brown → 3/4 brown1/4 golden(h) black x black → 9/16 black4/16 golden3/16 brownPropose a mode of inheritance that is consistent with these data, and indicate the corresponding genotypes of the parents in each mating. Indicate as well the genotypes of dogs that breed true for each color.
- Open Question
The wild-type allele of a gene has an A–T base pair at a particular location in its sequence, and a mutant allele of the same gene has a G–C base pair at the same location. Otherwise, the sequences of the two alleles are identical. Does this information tell you anything about the dominance relationship of the alleles? Explain why or why not.
- Open Question
Galactosemia is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by the inability to metabolize galactose, a component of the lactose found in mammalian milk. Galactosemia can be partially managed by eliminating dietary intake of lactose and galactose. Amanda is healthy, as are her parents, but her brother Alonzo has galactosemia. Brice has a similar family history. He and his parents are healthy, but his sister Brianna has galactosemia. Amanda and Brice are planning a family and seek genetic counseling. Based on the information provided, complete the following activities and answer the questions.
If the first child has galactosemia, what is the probability that the second child will have galactosemia? Explain the reasoning for your answer. - Open Question
Galactosemia is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by the inability to metabolize galactose, a component of the lactose found in mammalian milk. Galactosemia can be partially managed by eliminating dietary intake of lactose and galactose. Amanda is healthy, as are her parents, but her brother Alonzo has galactosemia. Brice has a similar family history. He and his parents are healthy, but his sister Brianna has galactosemia. Amanda and Brice are planning a family and seek genetic counseling. Based on the information provided, complete the following activities and answer the questions.
What is the probability that the first child of Amanda and Brice will have galactosemia? Show your work. - Open Question
Galactosemia is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by the inability to metabolize galactose, a component of the lactose found in mammalian milk. Galactosemia can be partially managed by eliminating dietary intake of lactose and galactose. Amanda is healthy, as are her parents, but her brother Alonzo has galactosemia. Brice has a similar family history. He and his parents are healthy, but his sister Brianna has galactosemia. Amanda and Brice are planning a family and seek genetic counseling. Based on the information provided, complete the following activities and answer the questions.
What is the probability that Amanda is a carrier of the allele for galactosemia? What is the probability that Brice is a carrier? Explain your reasoning for each answer. - Open QuestionA true-breeding purple-leafed plant isolated from one side of El Yunque, the rain forest in Puerto Rico, was crossed to a true-breeding white variety found on the other side. The F₁ offspring were all purple. A large number of F₁ x F₁ crosses produced the following results:purple: 4219 white: 5781 (Total = 10,000)Propose an explanation for the inheritance of leaf color. As a geneticist, how might you go about testing your hypothesis? Describe the genetic experiments that you would conduct.
- Open QuestionIn Dexter and Kerry cattle, animals may be polled (hornless) or horned. The Dexter animals have short legs, whereas the Kerry animals have long legs. When many offspring were obtained from matings between polled Kerrys and horned Dexters, half were found to be polled Dexters and half polled Kerrys. When these two types of F₁ cattle were mated to one another, the following F₂ data were obtained:3/8 polled Dexters3/8 polled Kerrys1/8 horned Dexters1/8 horned KerrysA geneticist was puzzled by these data and interviewed farmers who had bred these cattle for decades. She learned that Kerrys were true breeding. Dexters, on the other hand, were not true breeding and never produced as many offspring as Kerrys. Provide a genetic explanation for these observations.
- Open QuestionA geneticist from an alien planet that prohibits genetic research brought with him to Earth two pure-breeding lines of frogs. One line croaks by uttering 'rib-it rib-it' and has purple eyes. The other line croaks more softly by muttering 'knee-deep knee-deep' and has green eyes. With a newfound freedom of inquiry, the geneticist mated the two types of frogs, producing F₁ frogs that were all utterers and had blue eyes. A large F₂ generation then yielded the following ratios: 27/64 blue-eyed, 'rib-it' utterer 12/64 green-eyed, 'rib-it' utterer 9/64 blue-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterer 9/64 purple-eyed, 'rib-it' utterer 4/64 green-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterer 3/64 purple-eyed, 'knee-deep' muttererIn another experiment, the geneticist crossed two purple-eyed, 'rib-it' utterers together with the results shown here:9/16 purple-eyed, 'rib-it' utterer3/16 purple-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterer3/16 green-eyed, 'rib-it' utterer1/16 green-eyed, 'knee-deep' muttererWhat were the genotypes of the two parents?
- Open QuestionA geneticist from an alien planet that prohibits genetic research brought with him to Earth two pure-breeding lines of frogs. One line croaks by uttering 'rib-it rib-it' and has purple eyes. The other line croaks more softly by muttering 'knee-deep knee-deep' and has green eyes. With a newfound freedom of inquiry, the geneticist mated the two types of frogs, producing F₁ frogs that were all utterers and had blue eyes. A large F₂ generation then yielded the following ratios: 27/64 blue-eyed, 'rib-it' utterer 12/64 green-eyed, 'rib-it' utterer 9/64 blue-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterer 9/64 purple-eyed, 'rib-it' utterer 4/64 green-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterer 3/64 purple-eyed, 'knee-deep' muttererOne set of crosses with his true-breeding lines initially caused the geneticist some confusion. When he crossed true-breeding purple-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterers with true-breeding green-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterers, he often got different results. In some matings, all offspring were blue-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterers, but in other matings all offspring were purple-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterers. In still a third mating, 1/2 blue-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterers and 1/2 purple-eyed, 'knee-deep' mutterers were observed. Explain why the results differed.