In peas, the allele Le produces tall plants and the allele...

In peas, the allele Le produces tall plants and the allele le produces dwarf plants. The $L e$ allele is dominant to le. If a tall plant is crossed with a dwarf, the offspring are distributed about equally between tall and dwarf plants. What are the genotypes of the parents?

Key Concepts

Dominance

Dominance refers to the phenomenon in genetics where one allele of a gene masks or suppresses the expression of another allele at the same locus. In a heterozygous genotype, the dominant allele determines the phenotype, meaning that the presence of the dominant allele is enough to produce a specific trait even if it is paired with a recessive allele.

Alleles

Alleles are different versions of the same gene. They can vary in their sequence of DNA and may result in different traits. In hereditary crosses, understanding the interaction of multiple alleles through processes like dominance, where one allele's effect overshadows another, is crucial for predicting trait inheritance.

Homozygous and Heterozygous Genotypes

A homozygous genotype contains two identical alleles for a trait, whether they are dominant or recessive, while a heterozygous genotype contains two different alleles. In the context of this problem, a homozygous recessive individual exhibits the recessive (dwarf) phenotype, and a heterozygous individual, despite having one recessive allele, shows the dominant (tall) phenotype.

Monohybrid Cross

A monohybrid cross involves a single pair of contrasting traits and is used to study the inheritance of one particular trait. By crossing individuals with different genotypes, Mendelian principles such as dominant and recessive interactions can be applied to predict the distribution of offspring phenotypes, often using a Punnett square.

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