BIOLOGY

INCOMPLETE DOMINANCE AND are crossed, the resulting heterozygous

CODOMINANCE offspring is roan. Some of the offspring’s
hairs are red while others are white.
Are you familiar with the four o’clock
flower? The ABO blood type is another
example of two alleles, I A and IB, being
It is locally called rosas de alas
simultaneously expressed in a heterozygous
cuatro and scientifically known as Mirabilis
individual. This pattern is referred to as
jalapa.
codominace.
How many colors of its flower have you
EX: In some kind of cattle, there are
seen?
two alleles for coat color, R for red and r for
The most common variety produces white. When an allele for white and one
red (or purple) flowers. Another variety allele for red combine, the coat is spotted
produces white flowers. with red and white, also called roan. Predict
the possible offspring of homozygous red
A biologist cross- pollinated a red – cow and roan cow.
flower variety with a white – flower variety.
Then the seeds from the flowers produced
flowers that were neither red nor white but
pink.
How is this different from Mendel’s
observations?
In Mendel’s crosses, when the genes
for contrasting characters are present in the
same individual, only the dominant
character appears; the recessive character
does not appear.
Thus, with respect to seed color, a
heterozygous individual (Gg) produces
yellow seeds only. We say yellow seed is
dominant and green is recessive. Mirabilis
presents a different case: the heterozygous
individual produces flowers that are pink – a
blending of red and white. Neither red nor
white flower color is dominant. Biologist
refer to this phenomenon as incomplete
dominance or no dominance.
Fur color in cattle is due to
codominant alleles that are simultaneously
expressed in heterozygous individuals.
When red – furred and white-furred animal