Polygenic Inheritance of Traits Like Eye

Color and Skin Color

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 Traits such as skin color, eye color and hair color are polygenic traits that are influenced by
several genes. Stockbyte/Getty Images

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byRegina Bailey 
Updated July 13, 2018

Polygenic inheritance describes the inheritance of traits that are determined

by more than one gene. These genes, called polygenes, produce specific traits
when they are expressed together. Polygenic inheritance differs from Mendelian
inheritance patterns, where traits are determined by a single gene. Polygenic
traits have many possible phenotypes (physical characteristics) that are
determined by interactions among several alleles. Examples of polygenic
inheritance in humans include traits such as skin color, eye color, hair color, body
shape, height, and weight.

Polygenic Traits Distribution

  Polygenic traits tend to result in a distribution that resembles a bell-shaped
curve, with few at the extremes and most in the middle.
David Remahl/Wikimedia Commons

In polygenic inheritance, the genes contributing to a trait have equal influence

and the alleles for the gene have an additive effect. Polygenic traits do not
exhibit complete dominance as do Mendelian traits, but exhibit incomplete
dominance. In incomplete dominance, one allele does not completely
dominate or mask another. The phenotype is a mixture of the phenotypes
inherited from the parent alleles. Environmental factors can also influence
polygenic traits.

Polygenic traits tend to have a bell-shaped distribution in a population. Most

individuals inherit various combinations of dominant and recessive alleles. These
individuals fall in the middle range of the curve, which represents the average
range for a particular trait. Individuals at the ends of the curve represent those
who either inherit all dominant alleles (on one end) or those who inherit all
recessive alleles (on the opposite end). Using height as an example, most people
in a population fall in the middle of the curve and are average height. Those on
one end of the curve are tall individuals and those on the opposite end are short
individuals.

Eye Color

MECKY / Getty Images

Eye color is an example of polygenic inheritance. This trait is thought to be

influenced by up to 16 different genes. Eye color inheritance is complicated. It is
determined by the amount of the brown color pigment melanin that a person
has in the front part of the iris. Black and dark brown eyes have more melanin
than hazel or green eyes. Blue eyes have no melanin in the iris. Two of the genes
that influence eye color have been identified on chromosome 15 (OCA2 and
HERC2). Several other genes that determine eye color also influence skin color
and hair color.

Understanding that eye color is determined by a number of different genes, for

this example, we will assume that it is determined by two genes. In this case, a
cross between two individuals with light brown eyes (BbGg) would produce
several different phenotype possibilities. In this example, the allele for black
color (B) is dominant to the recessive blue color (b) for gene 1. For gene 2, the
dark hue (G) is dominant and produces a green color. The lighter hue (g) is
recessive and produces a light color. This cross would result in five
basic phenotypes and nine genotypes.

 Black eyes: (BBGG)

 Dark Brown eyes: (BBGg), (BbGG)
 Light Brown eyes: (BbGg), (BBgg), (bbGG)
 Green eyes: (Bbgg), (bbGg)
 Blue eyes: (bbgg)

Having all dominant alleles results in black eye color. The presence of at least two
dominant alleles produces the black or brown color. The presence of one
dominant allele produces the green color, while having no dominant alleles
results in blue eye color.

Skin Color

kali9 / Getty Images

Like eye color, skin color is an example of polygenic inheritance. This trait is

determined by at least three genes and other genes are also thought to
influence skincolor. Skin color is determined by the amount of the dark color
pigment melanin in the skin. The genes that determine skin color have two alleles
each and are found on different chromosomes.

If we consider only the three genes that are known to influence skin color, each
gene has one allele for dark skin color and one for light skin color. The allele for
dark skin color (D) is dominant to the allele for light skin color (d). Skin color is
determined by the number of dark alleles a person has. Individuals who inherit
no dark alleles will have very light skin color, while those that inherit only dark
alleles will have very dark skin color. Individuals who inherit different
combinations of light and dark alleles will have phenotypes of varying skin
shades. Those who inherit an even number of dark and light alleles will have a
medium skin color. The more dark alleles inherited, the darker the skin color.

Polygenic Inheritance Key Takeaways

 In polygenic inheritance, traits are determined by multiple genes,
or polygenes.
 Polygenic traits may express several different phenotypes, or displayed
characteristics.
  Polygenic inheritance is a type of incomplete dominance inheritance,
where the expressed phenotypes are a mixture of inherited traits.
 Polygenic traits have a bell-shaped distribution in a population with most
individuals inheriting various combinations of alleles and falling within the
middle range of the curve for a particular trait.
 Examples of polygenic traits include skin color, eye color, hair color, body
shape, height, and weight.

Sources
 Barsh, Gregory S. "What Controls Variation in Human Skin Color?" PLoS
Biology, vol. 1, no. 1, 2003, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0000027.
 "Is Eye Color Determined by Genetics?" U.S. National Library of Medicine,
National Institutes of Health, May 2015,
ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/traits/eyecolor.

CITE 

Polygenic Traits Definition

Polygenic traits are traits that are controlled by multiple genes instead of just
one. The genes that control them may be located near each other or even on
separate chromosomes. Because multiple genes are involved, polygenic traits do
not follow Mendel’s pattern of inheritance. Instead of being measured discretely,
they are often represented as a range of continuous variation. Some examples of
polygenic traits are height, skin color, eye color, and hair color.

Traits, Phenotypes, and Genotypes

To help understand polygenic traits, explanation of traits, phenotypes, and
genotypes is necessary. A trait is any feature of an organism, such as eye color.
A phenotype is the set of an organism’s physical characteristics. For example, a
person’s hair color, skin color, and eye color are all part of their phenotype. It
can also be used to describe the available forms of a trait. For example, eye
color is a trait, while its possible phenotypes are brown, hazel, and blue.
A genotype is an organism’s genetic makeup. For example, a person may have a
certain form of a gene, called an allele, for a trait. Genotype influences
phenotype; if one has certain alleles, they will have a certain physical
appearance, such as brown eyes or blue eyes. A person’s phenotype is the result
of all of the interactions of their genes, although it can also be influenced by
environment (e.g. sun tanning).

Non-Mendelian Inheritance
Polygenic traits are complex and unable to be explained by simple Mendelian
inheritance alone. Mendelian inheritance is involved when one particular gene
controls for a trait, and the traits are discrete. It is named after Gregor Mendel,
an Austrian monk and botanist who studied pea plants in the 19th Century. Many
of the traits in Mendel’s pea plants showed either/or phenotypes. For example,
they could have white or purple flowers, short or tall, or have wrinkly seeds or
smooth. This is because each trait was represented by only one gene which had
two alleles: dominant and recessive. If a plant had two dominant alleles, or one
dominant and one recessive allele, the flowers were purple, while if it had two
recessive alleles, the flowers were white.

Polygenic traits also have dominant and recessive alleles, but so many genes
play a role in an organism’s phenotype for these traits that the final result is the
sum of many complex interactions. It can be hard or impossible to figure out one
gene’s effect on a polygenic trait. Instead of being expressed in a ratio as single-
gene traits are, polygenic traits are expressed continuously and usually form a
bell curve when charted. For example, human skin color varies on a continuous
gradient from light to dark, and it is not quantifiable; one’s skin color can only be
compared to others for a sense of how light or dark his or her skin tone is. Some
people have extremely light or extremely dark skin, but the majority of the
world’s people do not, and fall somewhere in the middle.

This figure depicts a bell curve. For a trait like skin color, shade (light to dark)
would be on the X (horizontal) axis, and proportion of population would be on
the Y (vertical) axis. When data form a bell curve, they are said to show a
normal distribution.

Examples of Polygenic Traits

Height

Human height is controlled by many genes; in fact, there are over 400 genes
related to height, and all of these genes interact to make up a person’s
phenotype. This is a very large number, but it makes sense because height is a
compilation of the lengths of many different body parts, such as leg bones, the
torso, and even the neck. Polygenic traits can also be influenced by an
organism’s environment. If a person gets inadequate nutrition during childhood,
they can have stunted growth and end up smaller and shorter than they would
otherwise. It is estimated that 90% of a person’s adult height is controlled
by genetics, and 10% is affected by the environment.

This diagram shows the average offspring height based on the average height of
both parents. Although tall parents tend to have tall children, there is a wide
variation in the height that each child can be. On other words, tall parents can
also have short children, and vice versa. This is represented by the many data
points shown for each averaged height, with bigger data points representing a
larger number of people.

Skin Color

In humans, skin color is influenced by many things, but the pigment melanin
influences most of a person’s phenotype. In general, the more melanin a person
has, the darker their skin is. Albino people produce no melanin at all. The body
creates more melanin to protect against the sun’s UV rays, which is why skin
darkens after prolonged sun exposure. The amount and type of melanin that a
person produces, such as eumelanin, pheomelanin, and neuromelanin, is
controlled by multiple genes, and the different types of melanin interact to form
the final phenotype. For example, people with red hair have more pheomelanin
and often have a pinkish skin tone.

Eye Color

There are 2 major human eye color genes, OCA2 and HERC2, but at least 13

other genes also play a role. The colored part of a person’s eye is the iris. It is
a muscle that changes the size of the pupil in order to change the amount of
light that is absorbed by the retina. A person’s eye color is determined by the
pigmentation of their irises, but also by the way the cells in their irises scatter
light. As with skin color, eye color is affected by the presence of melanin. People
with brown eyes have a lot of melanin, while people with blue eyes have low
melanin in the front part of the iris that is visible. Green eyes are caused by
multiple factors; they are the result of a light brown iris combined with a blue
tone given by light scattering.

Related Biology Terms

 Gene – The basic unit of heredity; made up of DNA, it is transferred by
parent to offspring and codes for a specific part of the offspring’s
phenotype.
 Allele – A certain variant of a gene.
 Melanin – A pigment in skin, hair, and eyes that affects its color.
 Phenotype – Any part of an organism’s physical appearance.

Quiz
1. Which of these is NOT a polygenic trait?
A. Height
B. Skin color
C. Eye color
D. Widow’s peak

Answer to Question #1

2. What does the pigment melanin influence?

A. Skin color
B. Eye color
C. Hair color
D. All of the above

Answer to Question #2

3. Which of these statements is true about human height?

A. Tall people always have tall children.
B. If the height of all the world’s individuals were plotted, the data would form a
bell curve.
C. Height is controlled by a single gene.
D. Height is influenced by the amount of melanin pro
The Main Examples of Polygenic Inheritance in both Plants and Animals are listed
below:

1. Grain Color in Wheat:

It was Swedish scientist Nilsson – Ehle (1909) who first studied the inheritance pattern
of the colour of the grain in wheat. In some types, the kernel color is red (aleurone color)
and in others white and in still others which may be regarded as intermediates different,
shades of red appear in the kernel color.
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Nilsson – Ehle crossed a variety of wheat having dark red kernel with the one having
white kernel. The red color is incompletely dominant over white hence the F hybrid had
a kernel which was intermediate between red and white.

These F hybrids were bred among themselves to get the F 2 generation. In the F,
progeny the kernel color ranged from dark red, to white, between them there were at
least three grades of color. These shades of color can be graded as follows
Red, Reddish, Intermediate (pink), light and white.

According to the law of probability, it can be assumed, that two pairs of segregating
genes are responsible for the color variation in the wheat kernel. The red kernel wheat
has two pairs of genes (two pairs of alleles) both of which contribute some quantity of
redness to the grain.

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These genes are duplicates of each other the white kernel wheat had recessive alleles
of both these pairs (Q R,) and does not contribute anything to red coloration.

The F possesses two dominant genes (Rt r R2 r2) hence it is intermediate between red
and white. In the F, generation the color varies depending on the number of dominant
genes the offspring gets i.e. 4, 3, 2, 1 or zero.
In the above checker board, of the possible 16 types the following will be the phenotype
according to the number of dominant genes possessed by them As per the above
categorization, in the checker board, number I is red, 2,3, 5, and 9 are reddish,
4,5,6,10,11 and 13 are intermediate, 8, 12,14 and 15 are light and 16 is white.
The ratio is 1:4:6:4:1. In many instances this ratio is also represented as 15:1, since
except for the last one all others have some shades of red Nilsson-Ehle found in certain
other crosses of wheat concerning the kernel color, in the F 2 progeny only one in every
4 was white, with at least 5 intergrades between red and white. He proposed that in this
instance there were three pairs of genes (R, Rt R2R2 R3 R3) responsible for the kernel
color.
2. Skin Color in Human Beings:
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The interpretation regarding the skin color in Negroes and Caucasoid whites was bit of
a problem to interpret from the point of view of genie inheritance davenport (1913) first
successfully explained the skin color inheritance in terms of polygene.

He studied skin color of several people in Jamica and Muda. In these regions
intermarriages between Negroes and whites was quite frequent and the children were
called Mulattoes. He hypothesized that Negroes of central and Western Africa differ
from whites in having two pairs of dominant alleles which are incompletely dominant
over the genotype of whites.

In a cross between a Negro and a white, the F, called mulattoe is heterozygous to both
P1 and P, with the result the skin color is intermediate. Just as in kernel color in wheat,
here also the skin color depends on the number of dominant alleles.
It is as follows – Negro – allele four dominant genes and whites all the four recessive
genes. Mulattoes – Two dominant genes. When two mulattoes marry among
themselves (a mulattoe man and a mulattoe woman) in the F 2 generation 16 possible
types could be found among children.
Assuming that mulattoes are hybrids for both the color genes (P, and P,) there genotype
should be while they get dominant allele from the Negro parent, the recessive alleles
are obtained from the white parent.

Theoretically mulattoes both male and female produce four types of gametes which on
random combination would give 16 types.

In the F2 progeny the skin color would be black (4 dominant genes), dark (3 dominant
genes), Mulattoe (2 dominant genes), Fair (one dominant gene) and white (no dominant
gene).
Physiologically the skin color in human beings depends upon the amount of melanin (a
pigment) deposited on the skin. The amount of melanin depends upon the genes and its
development depends upon the amount of sun light received by the skin. According to
Curt Stern, the human skin colour depends on gene loci located at four to several
different loci.

3. Height of Man:
The height of the body in man is another typical example of polygenic inheritance. The
functioning of these genes however greatly depends on environmental factors. The
genes control the functioning of the pituitary thus controlling growth.

An under secretion of the pituitary under the influence of a ‘dwarf gene’ would retard the
growth.

4. Ear Length in Maize:

Emerson and East, the pioneers in the study of polygenic inheritance, observed many
quantitative variations in ear size in maize they worked on two varieties of maize – long
eared black Mexican sweet com and short eared Tom Thumb popcorn.

The first variety ranges in ear length from 12-21 cms with an average of 16.8 cms. The
second variety has ears ranging in length from 5-8 cms, averaging to 6.6 cms. When
these two varieties were crossed, the ear length in the F, progeny ranged from 9-15
cms averaging 12.1 cms.

Selling the F, progeny, F, was obtained much in the same way as in inheritance of
kernel color in wheat.

5. Ray Size in Flower Heads of Compositae:

A possible occurrence of polygenic system operating in the ray development has been
reported by the author (Sundara Rajan.) in the plant Bidenspilosa of Compositae. Here
there are two extremes.

In the one represented by a normal plant, the rays in the heterogamous heads are of
normal size i.e. they are formed by the fusion of three petals and the other 3 are
reduced resulting in zygomorphy of the ray floret.
 In the other extreme which is a recessive mutant, the rays are completely reduced; with
the result all the five petals of the ray floret are equal in size like the disc floret. The
floret becomes actinomorphic.

Between these, there are at least three intergradations representing cumulative

interaction of these genes. The fully developed rays represent all the dominant genes.
While the reduced rays represent all the recessive alleles.

Work is going on to hybridize the various grades to arrive at the possible number of
cumulative genes involved in the ray development.

Home ››
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2. Useful Notes on Multiple Factors of “Inheritance”
3. Multiple Factor Hypothesis–Kinds and Hypothetical Model Explained!
4. Useful Notes on Mendel’s Law of Inheritance
5. Essay on Polygenic Inheritance in Plants
6. 4 Main Examples of Gene Linkage in Plants and Animals
Define polygenic inheritance
 Polygenic inheritance refers to a single characteristic that is controlled by more than two
genes (also called multifactorial inheritance)
 Polygenic inheritance patterns normally follow a normal (bell-shaped) distribution curve
- it shows continuous variation
 By increasing the number of genes controlling a trait, the number of phenotype
combinations also increase, until the number of phenotypes to which an individual can
be assigned are no longer discrete, but continuous

10.3.2  Explain that polygenic inheritance can contribute to continuous variation using
two examples, one of which must be human skin colour
Human Skin Colour
 The colour of human skin is determined by the amount of dark pigment (melanin) it
contains
 At least four (possibly more) genes are involved in melanin production; for each gene
one allele codes for melanin production, the other does not
 The combination of melanin producing alleles determines the degree of pigmentation,
leading to continuous variation
TED Talks: Inheritance of Human Skin Colour

Grain Colour in Wheat

 Wheat grains vary in colour from white to dark red, depending on the amount of red
pigment they contain
 Three genes control the colour and each gene has two alleles (one coding for red
pigment, the other coding for no pigment)
 The most frequent combinations have an equal number of 'pigment producing' and 'no
pigment' alleles, whereas combinations of one extreme or the other are relatively rare
 The overal pattern of inheritance shows continuous variation

Polygenic Inheritance of Grain Wheat Colour