The purpose of this experiment was to study the inheritance of the genotypes for the original parents
The purpose of this experiment was to study the inheritance of the genotypes for the original parents, the F1 and F2 generation. This was done by comparing the predicted and actual values for the inheritance of these alleles. The major reason for a fly to have a certain phenotype in this experiment was sex linkage. Sex-linked recessive disorders is where a recessive allele is carried on the X chromosome, because it is on the X chromosome males will show the phenotype resulting from that allele at a much higher frequency than a female will. This is due to the fact a female contains two X chromosomes and requires both X chromosomes to contain the recessive allele to display its phenotype, whereas a male contains an X and a Y chromosome and requires only one X chromosome with that allele. In this experiment, both of the alleles were recessive mutant genes ( white eyes and ebony). A dominant gene is one that would override the effect of other genes. This means that whenever a fly was heterozygous to both wild and the mutant genes, its phenotype would be that of a wild type fly. This is shown in the offspring of the first cross.
The parent cross between homozygous white eyed males and homozygous virgin ebony females resulted in a F1 generation ratio of only wild type flies. This ratio was different from the predicted hypothesis for this generation.
