Epistasis in Genetics
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In genetics, Gregor Mendel's primitive model of heredity suggested that each physical trait (or phenotype) is controlled by a single gene that can exist in two different versions. These alternative versions, now known as alleles, are either dominant or recessive. Every individual possesses two alleles per gene, one inherited from each parent. If an individual has at least one dominant allele, then his or her overall phenotype will be dominant; both alleles must be recessive for a person to physically display the recessive form of the trait. This model posits that each characteristic has only two possible forms; for example, in Mendel's pea experiments, he studied seven traits that had only a dominant and recessive form, such as smooth and wrinkled seed texture, tall and dwarf plant size, and green and yellow pods.
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Contributed by: Stephanie Hu (January 2016)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
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References
[1] A. J. F. Griffiths, J. H. Miller, D. T. Suzuki, R. C. Lewontin, and W. M. Gelbart, An Introduction to Genetic Analysis, 6th ed., New York: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1996.
[2] N. A. Campbell and J. B. Reece, Biology, 7th ed., San Francisco: Pearson, Benjamin Cummings, 2005.
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"Epistasis in Genetics"
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Published: January 22 2016