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Heterozygote Advantage

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Situation I: Deleterious Recessive

1. Set the population size to 1000, the generations to 100, and the red starting frequency to 0.9.
2. Set the survival chance of blue to 0.1. In this case, blue represents a deleterious recessive allele.
Set survival of both Red and Purple to 1. In this case the red and purple individuals have the
same survival chance.
3. Run the simulation 5 times and record the final red and blue allele frequencies in the data table.
Trial 1 2 3 4 5 Average

Final R 0.9855 0.983 0.9775 0.996 0.9955 0.99

frequency
Final B 0.0145 0.017 0.0225 0.004 0.0045 0.01
frequency

4. Describe an example of a deleterious recessive human condition.

An example of a deleterious recessive human condition is sickle-cell anemia. Due to a recessive

genetic condition, red blood cells misshape into a sickle shape. The red blood cells in this condition die
early, leading to a shortage of red blood cells.

5. How do the results change if you adjust the mutation chances? Play with this on the simulation
and then describe your results.

When the mutation chance of red to blue mutation increases the final frequency of the red al-
lele is reduced, and that of the blue allele is increased. Whereas when the mutation chance of blue to
red mutation is increased, the final frequency of the red allele is increased, and that of the blue allele is
reduced.

6. What can cause mutation rates to increase in the real world?

Exposure of an organism to particular environmental factors, such as chemical carcinogens and ultravio-
let light increases the rates of mutation in the real world.
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Situation II: Heterozygote Advantage

1. Keep the same settings as Situation I, except set Red Survival to 0.5. In this case the heterozy-
gotes have a better survival rate than either homozygote.
2. Run the simulation 5 times and record the red and blue allele frequencies in the data table.
Trial 1 2 3 4 5 Average

Final R 0.6368 0.6351 0.6366 0.6582 0.6356 0.64

frequency
Final B 0.3632 0.3649 0.3634 0.3418 0.3644 0.36
frequency

a. Compare the Situation II results to the Situation I results. Explain your comparisons.

On decreasing the survival rate of Red, the average final red allele frequency is reduced from
0.9875 to 0.6404. Whereas the average final blue allele frequency is increased from 0.012 to 0.359. And
the purple phenotype has the maximum frequency, this is due to heterozygotes having a better survival
rate than either homozygote and thus having a better final frequency.

3. Describe a human example of the heterozygous advantage.

A human example of the heterozygous advantage is that homozygous sickle-shaped cells in

sickle cell anemia suffer from more fatal conditions when compared to heterozygous cases.