Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
GENETICS PROBLEMS
Part 1. Derivation of gametes
Gametes are haploid. Each gamete normally will have only one copy of the gene. A
circle is used to indicate each haploid gamete. Check that there is only one letter for
each trait in the circle.
It is possible to determine expected ratios, numbers and types of gametes when the
parental genotype is known.
Example: Determine the expected ratios and types of gametes resulting from:
2) A genotype of AaBb AB : Ab : aB : ab
These 4 kinds of gametes are in a
ratio of 1 : 1 : 1 : 1
n
3) Give the expected number of # types = 2 ; Where n = the number
of different gametes only - heterozygous gene pairs
3
AaBbCCDd 2 = 8 (a total of 8
different combinations can
result)
Part 1 Problems:
1. How many different kinds of gametes would you expect from a man who is
homozygous for brown eyes, BB?
2. Give the expected ratio of the gametes from the following genotype: AABb.
4. List the expected types and ratios of gametes produced from AABbCCDd.
5. Give the number of expected types of gametes from the following genotype
(A) AaBbCC, (B) DdEeFfGgHH, (C) a man with all chromosomes in
R RR Rr
R
r Rr rr 3:1
¾ of 60 offspring = 45 red
(B) Fractional Method ¼ of 60 offspring = 15 white
Parents: Rr (♂) x Rr (♀)
One-half of the male gametes will be R and one-half r . Likewise the female
produces two types of gametes, ½ R and ½ r . Use algebraic multiplication to
determine all possible combinations of these gametes:
♂ gametes ♀ gametes offspring
½R ¼ RR x 60 = 15 RR flies 45 red
½R ½r ¼ rR ½ Rr = 30 Rr flies
½R ¼ rR
½r ½r ¼ rr x 60 = 15 rr flies 15 white
genotypic results: ¼ RR, 2/4 Rr, ¼ rr, Genotypic ratio is 1 : 2 : 1
phenotypic results: ¾ red, ¼ white. Phenotypic ratio is 3 :
Part 2 Problems:
In humans, albinism controlled by a single recessive allele c, and normal
pigmentation by the dominant allele, C
6. What would be the phenotype of the following genotypes?
(A) CC, (B) Cc, (C) cc.
7. Suppose CC mates with cc, what would be the expected phenotypes and
genotypes and their relative frequencies on the assumption that many children
are produced?
8. Suppose Cc mates with cc, what would be the expected phenotypes and
genotypes, and their relative frequency, if many children were produced?
Suppose two albino children had been produced, what is the chance the next
will be albino?
9. Suppose Cc mates with Cc, what would be the expected phenotypes and
genotypes, and their relative frequency, if many children were produced?
10. A man and woman plan to marry and wish to know the probability of their
having any albino children. What could you tell them if:
A) both are normally pigmented, but each has one albino parent;
B) the man is an albino, the woman is normal, but her father is an albino;
C) the man is an albino and the girl’s family includes no albinos?
11. Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a heritable condition in humans involving inability to
metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine because of lack of a certain enzyme.
If not diagnosed and treated very shortly after birth, PKU's develop severe
mental retardation, and usually do not reproduce. Almost all PKU children,
therefore, are born to parents who are not PKU's.
A) Is the gene responsible for phenylketonuria completely dominant,
incompletely dominant, or recessive?
B) What kind of child would result from the mating of two PKU's.
12. In reference to question 11, the normal brother of a PKU seeks the advice of a
genetic counselor before a contemplated marriage. A) What is the probability
that he is heterozygous? B) If PKU occurs once in 25,000 births in the U.S.,
and he is considering marrying a normal woman who has no relatives with
PKU, what is the probability of their having a PKU child?
13. In humans, earlobes can be attached or free. A man with attached earlobes
marries a woman with free earlobes. All of their children have free earlobes.
One son marries, and of his children, half have free and half have attached
earlobes. A) What is the phenotype of the son’s wife?
B) Is attached earlobes dominant or recessive?
14. In dogs, wire hair is due to a dominant gene, smooth hair to its recessive
allele. Two wire-haired dogs produce a male pup which is wire-haired. To
find out most quickly whether he carries the gene for smooth hair, he should
be mated to what kind of female?
15. Pigs can be solid colored or half colored (anterior white). A solid-colored pig
was crossed to a half-colored pig, and the litter consisted entirely of solid
colored piglets. The F1 offspring were used in the following crosses:
A) F1 solid x P1 produced all solid offspring.
B) F1 solid x F1 solid produced 6 solid and 2 half-colored.
C) F1 solid x P1 half-colored produced 4 solid and 4 half-colored.
What are the genotypes and phenotypes of each of the pigs listed?
16. In cocker spaniels, black color is dominant over red. Two black parents have 8
puppies, 5 black and 3 red. What is the genotype of the parents?
17. The phenotypic expression of a dominant gene in Ayrshire cattle is a notch in
the tips of the ears. In the pedigree below, where solid symbols represent
notched individuals, determine the probability of notched progeny being
produced from the matings:
A) III-1 and III-3
B) III-2 and III-3
C) III-3 and III-4 (squares are males, circles are females)
D) III-1 and III-5
E) III-2 and III-5
18. Albinia and Smudgia are neighboring kingdoms. The ratio of albinos to
normally pigmented individuals in both kingdoms is about the same. The
inhabitants of Albinia, influenced by race propaganda, decide that the only
"true albinian" is one who is albino and set out by mandatory sterilization to
produce a pure albino population.
The naturalists of Smudgia, on the other hand, react by enacting similar
sterilization laws aimed at producing a 100 % pure non-albino population.
Which kingdom will arrive at its goal first? Explain.
19. Black wool of sheep is due to a recessive allele b and white wool to its
dominant allele B. A white buck (male) is crossed to a white ewe (female),
both animals carrying the allele for black. They produce a white buck lamb
which is then backcrossed to the female parent. What is the probability of the
backcross offspring being black?
20. In foxes, silver-black coat color is governed by a recessive allele b, and red
color by its dominant allele, B. Determine the genotypic and phenotypic ratios
expected from the following matings:
A) pure red x carrier red
B) carrier red x silver-black
C) pure red x silver-black
Part 3 Problems:
21.In cattle, polled (P) (hornless) condition is dominant over horned (p) and black
(B) is dominant over yellow (b). What will be the genotype and phenotype of
the Fl in a cross between a homozygous polled homozygous black bull and a
horned yellow cow?
22.In problem 21, what are the possible genotypes if the F1’s are allowed to
interbreed?
23.A solid colored, short-haired female rabbit (ssLL) is mated to a spotted,
longhaired male(SSll). How many will be expected to be spotted with long
hair? How many solid colored with short hair?
24. In turkeys, a dominant gene, R, produces bronze color. Its recessive allele, r,
results in red. Another dominant gene, H, results in normal feathers: its
recessive allele, h, produces feathers without webbing. Two bronze turkeys
with normal feathers were mated, and their offspring consisted of 9 bronze
with normal feathers, 1 red with webless feathers, 3 red with normal feathers,
and 3 bronze with webless feathers. What were the genotypes of the
parents? Explain.
25. In horses, black depends on a dominant gene B, and chestnut upon its
recessive allele, b. The trotting gait is due to a dominant gene, T, the pacing
gait to its recessive allele, t. If a homozygous black pacer is mated to a
homozygous chestnut trotter, what will have the phenotype of the F 1
generation? If two F 1 individuals were mated, what kinds of offspring would
they have, and in what proportions?
26. In Coleus plants, the following traits are heritable. Capitals represent dominant
characteristics.
D = deeply scalloped leaves
d = shallow scalloped leaves
I = irregular vein pattern
i = regular vein pattern
W = white at base of leaf
w = no white at base of leaf
If two DdIi Coleus plants are crossed, what fraction of the offspring will be:
A) shallow irregular, B) deep regular, C) DDIi, D) ddII.
27. What is the phenotypic ratio of the test cross DdII x you figure it
out)
28. (Trihybrid cross) What phenotypic classes would be produced by the following
cross: DdIiWw x DdIiWw? Express the proportions of each phenotype.
29. In Drosophila, ebony body color is produced by a recessive allele and wild type
(gray) body color by its dominant allele. Vestigial wings are governed by a
recessive allele, and normal wing size by its dominant allele. If wild type
heterozygous flies are crossed and produce 256 progeny, how many of these
progeny flies are expected in each phenotypic class?
30. In some-dogs, barking (B) when trailing is due to a dominant allele; others do
not bark (b). Also, erect ears (E) are dominant to drooping ears (e). By
crossing a heterozygous erect-eared barker with a droop-eared silent trailer,
what kind of pups would you expect?
31. Migraine (M) is inherited as a simple dominant in human beings. Diabetes (d)
is thought to be inherited as a recessive. Two people, heterozygous for each
of these alleles, marry. What are the chances of the children being normal?
Alleles to these mutants would be the normal condition (m) (D).
32. Determine the genotypic and phenotypic ratios resulting from each of the
following dihybrid crosses (assume lethals to exert their effect during early
embryo development):
Key: A = tall, a = short, B = black fur, b = white fur.
Parental Gene
Genotypes Characteristics Progeny Ratios
1st pair 2nd pair Genotype Phenotype
38. Chi-Square Problem. The flowers of four o'clock plants may be red, pink, or
white. Reds crossed to whites produced only pink offspring. When pinks were
crossed, they produced 113 red, 129 white, and 242 pink. It is thought that
these colors are due to codominant alleles. Is this hypothesis acceptable on
the basis of a chi-square test?
Part 5. Sex Linkage
Certain traits are carried by the X chromosomes. In all problems involving sex
linkage, report the results for the two sexes separately. There are two standard
notations for sex-linked traits. The preferred one involves the use of the X and Y
chromosomes with superscripts at the X chromosomes. The superscripts are like
C c C
monohybrid notation. Example: X X x X Y
A second notation replaces the X chromosome with the standard monohybrid
notation and uses the Y chromosome as an allele. Careful, this method can be
troublesome if your memory of the genetic mechanism is not clear.
Example: Cc x CY.
Example:
Normal vision in man is dominant to color blindness and the alleles are on the sex
chromosome. A normal male whose father was color blind marries a color blind
woman. What would be the chance of their sons and daughters being color blind?
C c
1) Set up your key: Let X = normal; X = color blind
2) Determine the genotypes of the parents:
Possible gametes are XC and Y .
C
Male is X Y.
c c c
Female is X X Only gamete is X .
3) Use the fractional method to solve this monohybrid cross:
Part 5 Problems
39. A boy, whose parents and grandparents had normal vision, is color blind.
Give the genotypes of his mother and his maternal grandparents.
40. In man, one type of night blindness, in which the individual sees normally in
bright light but very poorly in dim light, shows recessive sex-linked
inheritance: A woman with normal sight, whose father was night blind,
marries a man with night blindness. What are the types and proportions of
offspring to be expected?
Part 6 Problems:
d l d l d l d l
48. Diagram the cross F F G G x F F G G . What proportion of each phenotype will
be expected from such crosses?
49. A) Is it possible for two light brown parents to have "black" children?
B) Dark brown children?
C) Medium brown children?
D) "White" children?
50. Explain how it is possible for some medium parents to have variable skin color
in their offspring while other medium brown parents will have uniform offspring.
51. Trihybrid--epistatic:
Two medium brown parents are heterozygous for albinism. The genotype of
d 1 d l d d l l
one is AaF F G G and of the other is AaF F G G . What phenotypes, and in
what proportion will be expected in their offspring?
11). Look up the Chi-Square value from the table in your lab manual on page 117.
The first column in the table is the degrees of freedom column. This is
determined by taking the number of phenotypic classes and subtract one. So
if there are four phenotypes then the degrees of freedom will be 4 – 1 = 3.
Therefore you will look for the chi square total value in the third row of the
table.
12). Note the header of the column in the Chi-Square table where you find
the value closest to your total Chi-Square value. This is you p value.
13). If your p value is greater than 0.10, then your hypothesis concerning the
method of inheritance is supported by the experimental data. However, if your
p value is 0.01 or less, then your hypothesis is not supported by the data. This
may mean that there is an error in the experiment or that some other genetic
mechanism is in control of inheritance of that trait.
Key to characteristics:
Genotypes of Parents:
Calculate expected offspring:
2
Phenotypic Observed Expected Difference d2 d /e
Classes results(e) (d)
number