In: Biology
Q. We have a recombinant inbred line population in the F10 generation (NOTE THAT THIS IS A RECOMBINANT INBRED POPULATION (RIL), NOT AN F2 POPULATION). In this population, it was observed that there were 62 RILs with purple flowers and 38 RILs with white flowers.
1. What is the expected number of individuals for each class if a single dominant gene conditions purple flower color? For example, the parents used to produce the RIL population could be WW x ww.
2. Calculate the Chi-square statistic for this expected ratio.
3. Does the observed number of purple vs white fit the expected ratio for a single dominant gene at the 0.05 level of probability?
Recombinant inbred lines or RILs are collection of strains that serve a very powerful tool for genetic mapping especially of QTLs. RILs are obtained after generations of inbreeding or selfing. This leads to creation of isogenic lines, and the organism is homozygous for all loci.
Null hypothesis : there is no difference between observed and expected ratios.
If the parents originally used were homozygous for the alleles, then
purple flower will have genotype WW
white flower will have genotype ww.
These plants on crossing will segregate as 3: 1 (Purple: White) Mendelian monohybrid ratio in F2 generation.
Total number of flowers = 62 + 38 = 100
Trait |
Observed No. of flowers (O) |
Expected no. of flowers (E) |
(O-E) |
(O-E)2 |
χ2 = (O-E)2/E |
Purple |
62 |
¾ *100 = 75 |
-13 |
169 |
2.253 |
White |
38 |
¼ * 100 = 25 |
13 |
169 |
6.76 |
Total |
100 |
100 |
9.013 |
χ2 =9.013; df = 1
Critical χ2 value at df = 1 and p= 0.05 is 3.841.
Since critical χ2 value is less than χ2 observed hence we reject the null hypothesis. The observed ratios are not same as expected ratios. This indicates that the flower color may be controlled by more than one gene.