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One of Gregor Mendel's great discoveries was the Principle of Dominance. He noted that
when he hybridized two parents with different versions of a particular trait, one of those
versions apparently disappeared in the hybrid (heterozygous) offspring. If he then mated
those offspring to each other, the vanished trait reappeared in the third generation,
apparently completely unchanged despite being invisible in generation 2. He named the
version of the trait which was visible in the hybrids the dominant and the one that was
invisible in the hybrids the recessive.
We now know that Mendel discovered complete dominance, which is only one of
several different kinds of dominance relationships. Dominance relationships result from
the interactions of the gene products of different alleles of the same gene (not from
interactions between different genes). Note that dominance is virtually always defined
with respect to the phenotypic of the heterozygote.
codominant. This gene controls the deposition of antigenic markers on cells. A person
with blood type A (homozygous for IA or heterozygous for IA and the recessive i (for O
type)) has one kind of antigen marker, while a person with blood type B (homozygous for
IB or heterozygous for IB and the recessive i (for O type)) has a slightly different kind of
antigen marker. The heterozygote has blood type AB, and this person's cells have both A
antigens and B antigens on their surfaces. There is no "in-between" antigen, as would be
expected if the alleles showed incomplete dominance. Both of the alleles are completely
expressed, and the person has both blood types at the same time.
Dominance, of course, is all about phenotype. And a lot more goes into shaping the final
phenotype than just dominance. No gene exists or functions in a vacuum; all of them
operate in a cellular and organismal environment created by and influenced by all of the
other genes in the organism. In addition, many traits, such as the fur color and flower
color traits used above as examples, are actually impacted upon by more than one gene.
And, of course, there is always the external environment to be considered as well.