Single-gene inheritance

Definition

Inheritance in which one gene is chiefly responsible for the feature being considered.

Used by OCR

Specification B5.1l · Paper 2 (Foundation), Paper 4 (Higher)

In a simple single-gene inheritance model, one gene is chiefly responsible for the feature being studied. Different alleles of that gene can produce distinct phenotypes, and their inheritance can often be represented with a Punnett square.
Revise: Polygenic inheritance

Paper 1 (Foundation), Paper 2 (Foundation), Paper 3 (Higher), Paper 4 (Higher)

Inheritance of a characteristic whose pattern is modelled using different alleles of one gene.

1
Use “most phenotypic features” rather than claiming that every feature is polygenic. Contrast polygenic inheritance with single-gene inheritance when asked.

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Single-gene inheritance is a model for a characteristic determined mainly by the alleles of one gene.