Question

In the tomato genotype, aabbcc produces 100g tomatoes and AABBCC produces 160g tomatoes. What is the contribution of each polygene in the production of tomatoes?
(a) 10g
(b) 20g
(c) 30g
(d) 40g

Answer 1

In the given genotype one gene is recessive while the other is the dominant, genotype with a total of six alleles. The difference in the weight of two genotypes gets divided by the total no of alleles in each genotype.

Complete answer:
In the given question, genotype aabbcc is recessive, 100g tomatoes consist of this genotype while the genotype AABBCC is dominant and 160 g of tomatoes have this genotype. Each genotype consists of a total of six alleles in each, therefore, to carry out the contribution of each polygenic for the production of tomatoes we have to first subtract the weight of recessive genotype with the weight of the dominant genotype like 160-100= 60g. After that, we have to divide the weight of the genotype we get with the total number of alleles which is equal to 60/6= 10g. So, the contribution of each polygene in the production of tomatoes is 10g.

Additional Information:
The polygenes are the group of genes which when expressed together produce a particular phenotype which is a result of the expression of multiple genes. The polygenes which express themselves in the trait are known as polygenic traits. The skin colour, eye colour, height, weight etc, comes under polygenic traits.

So, the correct answer is '10g'.

Note:
The difference in polygenic traits and multiple alleles is in their DNA strands. Multiple genes are present on the same DNA strands whereas polygenic genes are present on different DNA strands therefore they represent different characteristics.