Question

4. If you are male, which member of your family should you look at to tell whether you are going to

go bald? Why? Use a punnett square to prove your answer.

Answer 1

Your mother

Step-by-step explanation:

If you are a male, the member of the family you should look at to tell whether you are going to go bald is your mother.

Baldness is a sex-linked recessive trait and as such, the two X chromosomes in females need to carry the allele in order for females to be phenotypically affected for the disorder. The males having only one X chromosomes however, means that they only need that single X chromosome to carry the baldness allele in order for them to be affected for baldness.

Assuming the allele for baldness in represented by b. Your mother is affected for baldness while your father is free from the disorder. This means that the genotype of your mum would be
`X^bX^b` while that of your dad would be
`X^BY`. According to law of inheritance, males usually inherit their X chromosomes from their mother. This means that any male your mother gives birth to would have the genotype
`X^bY` which phenotypically means that they will be affected for baldness.

The attached image shows the Punnet's square analysis of what will happen during inheritance.