Cheesy problem

Biology Level 2

A mouse has a gene for cheese preference: the preference of cheddar (C) is dominant over the preference of mozzarella (c). In a population of 400 mice, it was expected that 36 of them prefer mozzarella. Determine how many mice are expected to have the homozygous preference of cheddar (CC).

The correlation of cheese preference with genetics is purely fictional.

280 196 168 120

2 solutions

Mathew Oliver
Dec 31, 2015

Based on the information given we infer : P(cc) = P(c) * P(c) = 36/400. From this we get P(c) = 6/20. Hence P'(c) = P(C) = 14/20. Consequently P(CC) = P(C) * P(C) = 14/20 * 14/20 = 196/400, giving the answer of 196.

Steven Lee
Dec 26, 2015

Using the Hardy-Weinberg equation:

$q^2=36/400$

$q^2=0.09$

$q=0.3$

Then with $p+q=1$ we know that $p=0.7$ . Therefore for homozygous dominant, $p^2=0.49$ . So out of the 400 mice, $0.49\times 400=\boxed{196}$ are homozygous dominant.

What is Hardy-Weinberg equation?

Anik Mandal - 5 years, 5 months ago

http://www.nature.com/scitable/definition/hardy-weinberg-equation-299

Basically a equation relating the allele frequencies in a population

Steven Lee - 5 years, 5 months ago

Cheesy problem

The correlation of cheese preference with genetics is purely fictional.

2 solutions

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