Sex-linked Inheritance
Male or female?
One of the exciting things about expecting a child is wondering if the
baby will be a boy or a girl. There are many superstitions about how
one might influence or predict the outcome. But what really
determines if a baby is male or female? We now know that the gender
of a baby is determined by a special pair of chromosomes known as
the sex chromosomes.
Sex-linked Inheritance
What determines if a baby is a male or female? Recall that you have
23 pairs of chromosomes—and one of those pairs is the sex
chromosomes. Everyone has two sex chromosomes. Your sex
chromosomes can be X or Y. Females have two X chromosomes (XX),
while males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome (XY).
If a baby inherits an X chromosome from the father and an X
chromosome from the mother, what will be the child’s sex? The baby
will have two X chromosomes, so it will be female. If the
father’s sperm carries the Y chromosome, the child will be male.
Notice that a mother can only pass on an X chromosome, so the sex of
the baby is determined by the father. The father has a 50 percent
chance of passing on the Y or X chromosome, so there is a 50 percent
chance that a child will be male, and there is a 50 percent chance a
child will be female. This 50:50 chance occurs for each baby. A
couple's first five children could all be boys. The sixth child still has a
50:50 chance of being a girl.
One special pattern of inheritance that doesn’t fit Mendel’s rules
is sex-linked inheritance, referring to the inheritance of traits that
are located on genes on the sex chromosomes. Since males and
females do not have the same sex chromosomes, there will be
differences between the sexes in how these sex-linked traits—traits
linked to genes located on the sex chromosomes—are expressed. Sex-
linked traits usually refer to traits due to genes on the X chromosome.
One example of a sex-linked trait is red-green color blindness.
People with this type of color blindness cannot tell the difference
between red and green. They often see these colors as shades of
brown (Figure below). Boys are much more likely to be colorblind than
girls (Table below). This is because color blindness is a sex-
linked, recessive trait.
Boys only have one X chromosome, so if that chromosome carries the
gene for color blindness, they will be colorblind. As girls have two X
chromosomes, a girl can have one X chromosome with the colorblind
gene and one X chromosome with a normal gene for color vision.
Since color blindness is recessive, the dominant normal gene will mask
the recessive colorblind gene. Females with one color
blindness allele and one normal allele are referred to as carriers. They
carry the allele but do not express it.
How would a female become colorblind? She would have
to inherit two genes for color blindness, which is very unlikely. Many
sex-linked traits are inherited in a recessive manner.
(Figure 2)
According to this Punnett square (Table above), the son of a woman
who carries the color blindness trait and a male with normal vision has
a 50% chance of being colorblind.
Summary
Each individual has two sex chromosomes; females have two X
chromosomes (XX), while males have one X chromosome and
one Y chromosome (XY).
Sex-linked traits are located on genes on the sex chromosomes.