What are the 3 things that a pedigree chart can show?

Pedigrees represent family members and relationships using standardized symbols. By analyzing a pedigree, we can determine genotypes, identify phenotypes, and predict how a trait will be passed on in the future.

How do you tell if a trait is dominant or recessive?

For example, if a trait tends to be directly passed from parent to child, then the odds are pretty good that the trait is a dominant one. If a trait skips generations or pops up out of nowhere, then the odds are pretty good that it is recessive.

How do you know if a pedigree is dominant or recessive?

If the trait is dominant, one of the parents must have the trait. Dominant traits will not skip a generation. If the trait is recessive, neither parent is required to have the trait since they can be heterozygous.

How do you know if you have dominant or recessive genes?

The way people write out dominant and recessive traits is the dominant one gets a capital letter and the recessive one a lower case letter. So for eye color, brown is B and blue is b. As I said above, people have two versions of each gene so you can be BB, Bb, or bb–BB and Bb have brown eyes, bb, blue eyes.

Is shaded dominant or recessive?

For example, having a widow’s peak hairline is dominant. If an individual has that trait, their symbol on the pedigree will be shaded in. If they have no widow’s peak, their symbol will not be shaded in because having no widow’s peak is recessive.

What are the basic rules for constructing a pedigree?

Draw any siblings in birth order from left (oldest) to right (youngest). Siblings are connected by a horizontal line above the symbols, with vertical lines connecting the symbols to the horizontal line. Leave space to add any partners and children. Add aunts, uncles, grandparents in the same manner.

How do you determine the inheritance pattern of a pedigree?

By analyzing a pedigree, we can determine genotypes, identify phenotypes, and predict how a trait will be passed on in the future. The information from a pedigree makes it possible to determine how certain alleles are inherited: whether they are dominant, recessive, autosomal, or sex-linked.

Which allele is recessive?

Recessive alleles only show their effect if the individual has two copies of the allele (also known as being homozygous?). For example, the allele for blue eyes is recessive, therefore to have blue eyes you need to have two copies of the ‘blue eye’ allele.

Are freckles recessive?

It leads to the confusing result that freckles are dominant and red hair is recessive. Even though they are the same gene! The MC1R gene is actually responsible for hair color in many animals. Blond or ginger colored mice were found to have the same gene variations.

What type of gene is always expressed?

constitutive gene
A constitutive gene is a gene that is transcribed continually as opposed to a facultative gene, which is only transcribed when needed. A housekeeping gene is a gene that is required to maintain basic cellular function and so is typically expressed in all cell types of an organism.