Question

Define the following term:

Heterozygous condition

Answer 1

Heterozygous condition:

1. A heterozygous condition refers to an organism that inherits different variants of the same gene from both parents.
2. A heterozygous genotype differs from a homozygous genotype. This is because a person with a homozygous genotype acquires identical forms of a gene from both parents.
3. A heterozygote is usually represented by a capital letter that represents the dominant allele as well as a lower case letter that represents a recessive allele.

Example:

1. Height in garden pea plants is determined by a dominant allele (T) and a recessive allele (t).
2. The dominant allele codes for tall height while the recessive allele codes for dwarfness.
3. Tallness is expressed in both homozygous (TT) and heterozygous dominant form (Tt) and dwarfness are expressed in the only homozygous recessive form (tt).
4. A heterozygote has different alleles i.e. Tt is a heterozygote for tallness in pea plants.