Download Genetics Vocabulary

TRAIT
A distinguishing feature that a person has
Examples:
Brown hair
Freckles
Widow’s peak
Blue Eyes
GENE
The chemical factors in your DNA that determine
your traits
Genes for things give us codons which we use to
make proteins and proteins help us express
those traits!
ALLELE
Each different copy of a gene
Examples: you get one allele from each parent
Blue eye allele from dad
Brown eye allele from mom
HOMOZYGOUS
Both alleles from your parents are the same
Either both dominant (BB) or recessive (bb)
HETEROZYGOUS
Alleles from your parent are different
Dad gives you a (B) and mom gives you a (b)
DOMINANT
A trait that will ALWAYS appear as long as there
is one capital allele
Widow’s Peak (WW or Ww)
ALWAYS UPPER CASE LETTERS
RECESSIVE
A trait that will only appear without the dominant
allele
No widow’s peak (ww)
always lower case letters
GENOTYPE
The actual letters of the alleles an individual has
BB
Bb
bb
PHENOTYPE
The way you physically look
Brown hair
Blue eyes
Freckles
HYBRID
Another term used to describe an organism that
is heterozygous (Bb)
HEREDITY
The act of passing down traits (alleles) from
parents to offspring
GENETICS
The study of heredity
SEGREGATION
Separation of alleles during gamete formation!