Question

Read the following family history and draw a pedigree to determine the inheritance patternfor thalassemia major.Once the pedigree is assembled, label the genotypes of each individual using a capital "H" torepresent the dominant allele and a lower case "h" to represent the recessive allele and createa key to identify which version is the thalassemia allele. If more than one genotype is possible foran individual, list all possible genotypes.What we know about John's family history:John has thalassemia major. Both of John's parents have normal red blood cells. John also has abrother and a sister, but neither have been tested for the thalassemia trait. John's wife, Linda,has normal red blood cells. Both of Linda's parents have normal red blood cells. Linda's maternalgrandfather (her mother's father) has normal red blood cells, while her maternal grandmother(her mother's mother) has the thalassemia trait. Linda's fraternal grandfather (her father'sfather) had thalassemia major, while her fraternal grandmother (her father's mother) had normalred blood cells

Answer 1

A pedigree is a human genealogy where hereditary diseases can be traced.

In a pedigree, males are represented by squares, and females are represented by circles.

Filled or colored shapes indicate the presence of the disease, while carriers can be represented with a shape with a dot in the middle or with a half-filled shape.

Here we will be tracing thalassemia major, which is a blood disorder that causes malfunctions in the hemoglobin, and abnormal blood cells.

First, the pedigree with the information they gave us.

Now, let's add the genotypes.

Given that having one parent with thalassemia major doesn't mean their children have thalassemia as well, as in the case of the parents of Linda, we can assume that thalassemia is a recessive gene:

H- healthy

h - thalassemia

So the more probable genotypes are the following:

H? means the genotype can be Hh or HH.

This means thalassemia is an autosomal recessive disease.