Mendelian Genetics

More Genetic Terms

Backcross

the cross of an F1 hybrid to one of the homozygous parents; for pea plant height the cross would be Dd x DD or Dd x dd; most often, though a backcross is a cross to a fully recessive parent

Testcross

the cross of any individual to a homozygous recessive parent; used to determine if the individual is homozygous dominant or heterozygous

Monohybrid cross

cross between parents that differ at a single allelic pair (usually AA x aa)

Monohybrid

the offspring of two parents that are homozygous for alternate alleles of a gene

Remember --- a monohybrid cross is not the cross of two monohybrids.

Dominance

the ability of one allele to express its phenotype at the expense of an alternate allele; the major form of interaction between alleles; generally the dominant allele will make a gene product that the recessive can not; therefore the dominant allele will express itself whenever it is present