Question

If you were homozygous recessive for the autosomal recessive sickle cell anemia trait and you married someone that is homozygous dominant for the trait, what percentage of your children would be heterozygous?

Answer 1

100% of the children from a union of an individual who is homozygous recessive for sickle cell anemia and someone who is homozygous dominant for the trait will be heterozygous, meaning they will all be carriers of the trait.

Step-by-step explanation:

If an individual is homozygous recessive for the autosomal recessive trait of sickle cell anemia (ss) and marries someone who is homozygous dominant (SS) for the trait, all of their children will be heterozygous (Ss) for the trait. This means that 100% of their children will inherit one sickle cell allele from the affected parent and one normal allele from the unaffected parent, resulting in a genotype of Ss, making them carriers of the sickle cell trait without exhibiting symptoms of sickle cell anemia. The science that helps us understand these inheritance patterns is known as Mendelian genetics.

The sickle cell gene affects millions of people around the world, including a significant portion of African Americans. Heterozygotes with the sickle cell trait (Ss) have some normal red blood cells and some misshapen cells due to the expression of both dominant and recessive alleles. While homozygous recessive individuals have the full-blown disease, homozygous dominant individuals have completely normal red blood cells.