Friday, 29 January 2016

codominant alleles: Blood type

What if the heterozygous trait exhibited codominance?  in this case, two homologous alleles can code for co-dominant traits.  That is neither is dominant over the other.  Blood type is an example of this:
A is codominant to B
A is dominant over O
B is dominant over O

Possible genotypes:

heterozygous AB blood gives both type A and B on the erythrocytes
homozygous AA gives blood type A  protein on the erythrocytes
homozygous BB is blood type B protein on the erythrocytes
Heterozygous AO is gives blood type A
Heterozygous BO is blood type B

homozygous recessive OO gives blood type O or neither A or B on erythrocytes.

You have heard that blood type is important for blood transfusions. That is because the immune system will always attack an unknown protein.  Thus

type A person can receive  type A blood, and will reject type B blood
type B person can receive type B blood and will reject type A
type AB person can receive type A blood and Type B blood
Type O person can receive nobody's blood except from another type O

Everyone can receive type O, No-one can receive type AB

Blood type is heritable and that means you can sometimes deduce genotype by looking at phenotype. Here is a sample question: