in a population where you only know the total number of individuals with the dom
ID: 219920 • Letter: I
Question
in a population where you only know the total number of individuals with the dominant phenotype , how can you calculate the frequency of carriers and homozygous recessive individuals?
Explanation / Answer
This question is based on Hardy-Weinberg equation.
The question says that in a population we know only the total number of dominant phenotypes. Using this data we need to calculate the frequency of carriers and homozygous recessive alleles.
Step 1
Let us consider that the total number of dominant phenotypes in a population is 16
As per the Hardy-Weinberg equation, we know that
p + q = 1 and p2 + q2 + 2pq = 1
where,
p = allelic frequency of the dominant allele
q = allelic frequency of the recessive allele
p2 = percentage of dominant individuals in a given population
q2 = percentage if recessive individuals in a given population
2pq = percentage of heterozygous individuals in a given population.
Step 2
From step 1, we know that the number of dominant alleles is 16.
Percentage of dominant allele = 16% = 0.16 = p2
So, from the above calculation, we obtained the percentage of dominant allele p2 = 0.16
Now we have to calculate the frequency of dominant allele p
p2 = 0.16
p = ?0.16 = 0.4
So, the frequency of dominant allele p = 0.4
Step 3
Now we shall calculate the frequency of recessive allele using the formula
p + q = 1
0.4 + q = 1
q = 1 - 0.4 = 0.6
So, from the above calculation, the frequency of recessive allele q = 0.6
Step 4
From steps 1,2 and 3 we know the frequency of dominant allele and recessive allele
Now we shall calculate the frequency of carriers
A carrier generally shows a heterozygous condition consisting of a dominant allele and a recessive allele.
So, the frequency of carriers in a population can be calculated by using the following formula
Frequency of carriers in a population = frequency of dominant allele x frequency of recessive allele
= 0.4 x 0.6
= 0.24
From the above calculation, frequency of carriers in a population is 0.24
Step 5
Since we already know the frequency of the recessive allele, we can easily calculate the frequency of homozygous recessive.
The homozygous recessive condition can be written as qq = q x q = q2
We know the value of q. That is q = 0.6.
So, q2 = (0.6)2 = 0.36
From steps 1 to 5, without knowing the population we calculated the following frequencies:
1. Frequency of dominant allele p = 0.4
2. Frequency of recessive allele q = 0.6
3. Frequency of carriers pq = 0.24
4. Frequency of homozygous recessive qq = 0.36
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