Polydactyly is an inherited trait that results in extra fingers or toes. In the United States 0.1% of the population exhibits polydactyly. People with polydactyly have the genotype Pp, where P represents the allele that causes polydactyly and p represents the normal allele of this gene. Which of the following is true?

a. There is not enough information to answer this question.

b. The two alleles, P and p are at approximately equal frequencies in the US population.

c. The P allele is less frequent in the US than the p allele.

d. The P allele is more frequent in the US than the p allele.

Question

Leroy Watts

Biology

15 September, 18:35

Polydactyly is an inherited trait that results in extra fingers or toes. In the United States 0.1% of the population exhibits polydactyly. People with polydactyly have the genotype Pp, where P represents the allele that causes polydactyly and p represents the normal allele of this gene. Which of the following is true?

a. There is not enough information to answer this question.

b. The two alleles, P and p are at approximately equal frequencies in the US population.

c. The P allele is less frequent in the US than the p allele.

d. The P allele is more frequent in the US than the p allele.

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Answers (1)

Know the Answer?

Brayan Hess · Answer 1

c. The P allele is less frequent in the US than the p allele.

Explanation:

If people with the heterozygous genotype "Pp" present polydactyly, only people with the genotype "pp" will not present polydactyly. Since 99.9% of the population do not exhibit polydactyly, then it can be concluded that the "p" allele is much more frequent in the US than the "P" allele.

Therefore, the answer is:

c. The P allele is less frequent in the US than the p allele.