Dihybrid Inheritance

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Slide 1

Dihybrid Inheritance

Dihybrid inheritance refers to the simultaneous inheritance of two characters

Slide 2

Mendel’s experiment

Mendel investigated the inheritance of seed shape (round v wrinkled) and seed colour (green v yellow) at the same time.

From his monohybrid crosses he knew that round seeds were dominant to wrinkled seeds and yellow seeds were dominant to green seeds.

He chose to cross plants that were pure breeding for both dominant features (round and yellow seeds) with plants that were pure breeding for both recessive features (wrinkled and green seeds)

Slide 3

Results

Parents plants with round x plants with wrinkled and yellow seeds and green seeds

F1 offspring 100% plants with round and yellow seeds

F1 intercross plants with round x plants with round

and yellow seeds and yellow seeds

F2 offspring Total 556 seeds collected from F2 plants

Ratio

315 9 round and yellow seeds

108 3 round and green seeds

101 3 wrinkled and yellow seeds

32 1 wrinkled and green seeds

However, the ratio of dominant to recessive features is still 3:1

Slide 4

Explanation of Mendel’s results

Let the allele for round seeds be R and the allele for wrinkled seeds be r

Let the allele for yellow seeds be Y and the allele for green seeds be y

Parents Phenotype round x wrinkled

yellow seeds green seeds

Genotype RR YY rryy

Gametes

F1 offspring

RY

RY

ry

ry

Slide 5

F1 intercross

Parents

phenotype round, yellow seeds x round, yellow seeds

genotype Rr Yy Rr Yy

Gametes

RY

Ry

rY

ry

ry

rY

Ry

RY

What are the genotypes and phenotypes of the F2 offspring and in what ratio?

Slide 6

F2 offspring

genotypes phenotypes expected observed

RRYY (1) RrYy (4) yellow, round

RRYy (2) RrYY (2) yellow, round 9 315

RRyy (1) Rryy (2) round, green 3 108

rrYY (1) rrYy (2) wrinkled, yellow 3 101

rryy (1) wrinkled, green 1 32

Slide 7

Allowing for statistical error, Mendel’s results were a reasonable approximation to the expected 9:3:3:1 ratio

Each of a member of an allelic pair may combine randomly with either of another pair

A test cross can be performed to check the possible genotypes of a plant producing round, yellow seeds (RRYY, RrYY, RrYy, RRYy) by crossing the plants with a homozygous recessive plant with wrinkled green seeds genotype rryy