Polygenic Inheritance Flashcards

All 4 cards in this deck

What is polygenic inheritance?

Inheritance of a characteristic that is controlled by more than one gene.

Are most human phenotypic features controlled by one gene or by many genes?

By many genes — most phenotypic features are polygenic rather than single-gene inheritance.

Give two examples of human characteristics that are polygenic.

Height and body mass (also skin colour and eye colour).

True or false? Human eye colour is controlled by a single gene with brown dominant to blue.

False. Eye colour is polygenic — it is controlled by several genes.