In: Biology
Hemophilia is a sex-linked recessive disorder. If an unaffected
woman mates with an unaffected man, and they have 2 children with
hemophilia, and 2 children who are unaffected,
What are the chances that the couple will have a girl who does not
have hemophilia?
Hemophilia is a sex-linked recessive genetic disorder in humans. This means that a female will be affected only if she is homozygous for the allele and a male will be affected even when a single copy of the allele is present. Thus, according to the information, the genotype of the parents would be given by:
Mother: Unaffected (XhX)
Father: Unaffected (XY)
Here, two of the children are affected wheres other two are not. This can be possible only when the two affected children are inheriting two alleles each from a parent if they are females, or one allele from the mother if they are males. This, in turn, suggests that the mother should be a carrier for the disease but not affected herself.
Thus, the Punnett square for this couple can be formulated as below:
Xh | X | |
X | XXh | XX |
Y | XhY | XY |
Genotype: XhX : XX: XhY: XY
Phenotype: Affected : Normal carriers: normal non-carriers :: 1 : 1: 2 or Affected : Normal :: 1:3
Thus, the chances of having an unaffected female child for this couple are 2/4 or 1/2 or 50%.