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Punnett Square – Test Cross

Scenario: You have an organism showing a dominant phenotype, but you don’t
know it’s genotype. How do you figure it out?

Test cross! By crossing your organism with a homozygous recessive organism

Example: You have a black fur lab. Black fur is dominant, brown fur is recessive.
What could be the genotype of the black fur lab?

Punnett Square – Test Cross

Example continued: You have mated the dogs and have produced a litter with 8
puppies. 7 puppies are brown, and one puppy is black. What is the genotype of
the black lab?

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Punnett Square – Dihybrid cross

A dihybrid cross is one where two allele traits are observed and accounted for.
Works the same as a monohybrid cross, but now we are accounting for two
traits.

Punnett Square
Parents Round yellow seed Wrinkled yellow seed
Genotype Rr Yy rr Yy
Possible
gametes
Punnett Square

Resulting
phenotypes

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Punnett Square
Parents Round green seed Wrinkled yellow seed
Genotype Rr yy rr Yy
Possible
gametes
Punnett Square

Resulting
phenotypes

Punnett Square – Sex-linked traits

A sex-linked trait is a trait which is found on the sex chromosomes
In humans
• Females will have two copies of the allele’s (X and X)
• Males will have only one copy of the allele (X and Y)

This may or may not hold for other organisms! Sex chromosomes are different
across different species!

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Haemophilia in the Royal Families of Europe

1. Which of Beatrice’s children are:

• Haemophilic: _____________
• Carriers: _________________
• Normal: _________________

2. Determine whether Juan Carlos of

Spain is haemophilic, a carrier, or
normal? ________________________

3. If Juan Carlos’s mother was a carrier,

what is the genotypic percentage that
Juan Carlos is haemophilic? Is Normal?

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1. What is the probability that all four girls from the

union of Alix and Nikolas II of Russia were all carriers?

2. Supposing Alexis had lived, and married a normal

woman, what are the chances that:
• His daughters are carriers
• His son is haemophilic
• His daughter is haemophilic

Non-Mendelian Genetics
Def: Branch of genetics which do not follow mendelian laws of inheritance, due
to the fact that inherited characteristics involve multiple genes or no clear
dominant or recessive situation occurs (co-dominance, incomplete dominance)

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Incomplete dominance
Incomplete dominance: Intermediate phenotype, where the heterozygote
genotype’s phenotype is a blend of the homozygote dominant and homozygote
recessive phenotypes.

Ex: Snapdragon petal colour

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Co-dominance
Co-dominance: The allele’s of the heterozygote are fully
expressed, which results in a phenotype that is not
dominant or recessive.

Ex: Human blood groups

IA IA or IA IO IBIB or IB IO

IA IB IO IO

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