Biology: Science for Life and Biology: Science for Life with Physiology

Colleen Belk and Virginia Borden Maier

Chapter 8: Does Testing Save Lives?

Genetics Problems

1. A single gene in pea plants has a strong influence on plant height. The gene has two alleles:
tall (T), which is dominant, and short (t), which is recessive. What are the genotypes and
phenotypes of the offspring of a cross between a TT and a tt plant?

2. What are the genotypes and phenotypes of the offspring of Tt × Tt?

3. The “P” gene controls flower color in pea plants. A plant with either the PP or Pp genotype
has purple flowers, and a plant with the pp genotype has white flowers. What is the
relationship between P and p?

4. Albinism occurs when individuals carry two recessive alleles (aa) that interfere with the
production of melanin, the pigment that colors hair, skin, and eyes. If an albino child is born
to two individuals with normal pigment, what is the genotype of each parent?

5. Pfeiffer syndrome is a dominant genetic disease that occurs when certain bones in the skull
fuse too early in the development of a child, leading to distorted head and face shape. If a
man heterozygous for the allele that causes Pfeiffer syndrome marries a woman who is
homozygous for the nonmutant allele, what is the chance that their first child will have this
syndrome?

6. A cross between a pea plant that produces yellow peas and a pea plant that produces green
peas results in 100% yellow pea offspring. A. Which allele is dominant in this situation? B.
What are the likely genotypes of the yellow pea and green pea plants in the initial cross?

7. A cross between a pea plant that produces round (R), yellow (Y) peas and a pea plant that
produces wrinkled (r), green (y) peas results in 50% yellow, round pea offspring and 50%
green, wrinkled pea offspring. What are the genotypes of the plants in the initial cross?

8. A woman who is a carrier for the cystic fibrosis allele marries a man who is also a carrier.
A. What percentage of the woman’s eggs will carry the cystic fibrosis allele? B. What
percentage of the man’s sperm will carry the cystic fibrosis allele? C. The probability that
this couple will have a child who carries two copies of the cystic fibrosis allele is equal to
the percentage of eggs that carry the allele times the percentage of sperm that carry the
allele. What is this probability? D. Is this the same result you would generate when doing a
Punnett square of this cross?

9. The allele BRCA2 was identified in families with unusually high rates of breast and ovarian

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cancer. Up to 80% of women with one copy of the BRCA2 allele develop one of these
cancers in their lifetime. A. Is BRCA2 a dominant or a recessive allele? B. How is BRCA2
different from the typical pattern of Mendelian inheritance?

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