Question

The frequency of a particular lethal recessive allele in a population is 0.02. Given this information, calculate the percentage of individuals who are carriers of the lethal recessive allele. Because you know the frequency of the recessive allele is 0.02, you can determine the frequency of the dominant allele: 1 - 0.02 = 0.98. Once you know p and q, which factor of the Hardy-Weinberg equation will give you the frequency of heterozygotes?

Answer 1

2pq

Step-by-step explanation:

Hardy-Weinberg equation is p2+2pq+q2=1 (p+q=1).

p2 represents frequency of dominant homozygous (p is dominant allele), 2pq represents the frequency of heterozygous, q2 represents the frequency of recessive homozygous (q is the recessive allele).

So, in the example above, the frequency of heterozygous is 2*0.98*0.2=0.392