Mother AO and father OO

If the mother has an A allele and an O allele, her blood group will be A because the A is dominant. The father has two O alleles (OO), so he has the blood group O. Each one of their children has a 50 per cent chance of ha ing blood group A (AO) and a 50 per cent chance of ha ing blood group O (OO), depending on which alleles the! inherit. The "unnett #$uare would represent this information in the following wa!. The paired alleles show the possible ariations in the genes of their offspring. Father Mother O O A AO AO O OO OO
Mother AO and father AA

If the mother has an A allele and an O allele, her blood group will be A because the A is dominant. The father has two A alleles, so his blood group is also A. Their children will be either AO or AA but, either wa!, each one will ha e blood group A because the A allele is dominant. The "unnett #$uare would represent this information in the following wa! % the paired alleles show the possible ariations in the genes of their offspring. Father Mother A A A AA AA O AO AO The AO children in the second case abo e will ha e a 50 per cent chance of passing on either the A or the O allele to their own offspring. This e&plains, for e&ample, wh! parents with blood group A (if the! are both AO) can produce a child with blood group O.
Co-dominant genes

'ot all genes are either dominant or recessi e. #ometimes, each allele in the gene pair carries e$ual weight and will show up as a combined ph!sical characteristic. (or e&ample, with blood groups, the A allele is as )strong* as the + allele. #o someone with one cop! of A and one cop! of + has the blood group A+.
Genotype and phenotype

,enot!pe and phenot!pe are popular terms in the science of genetics. -ontinuing the e&ample of blood groups, a person with the alleles AO will ha e the blood group A. The obser able trait % blood group % is .nown as the phenot!pe. The term )genot!pe* refers to the genes that produce the obser able trait. #o the person has the blood group A phenot!pe, but the AO genot!pe.
Things to remember

/hen a sperm fertilises an egg, their two sets of genes combine into a paired set of 01 chromosomes. Alleles are different forms of the same gene. Out of a gene pair, one gene is often dominant o er the other % for e&ample, the allele for blood group A is dominant o er the allele for blood group O.