Introduction

You may be familiar with someone who has suffered from a genetic disorder.  While human genetic disorders are widespread and very important to study, it is very challenging to investigate such diseases.  One tool that geneticists have at their disposal is the ‘family pedigree‘.  Let us explore more about this tool now.

The following video explains how to create a pedigree.

Summary

In this section, we have learned:

• A family pedigree can be used to identify patterns of inheritance within a family to determine the nature of the underlying genetic cause.
• In a pedigree, the appearance of symbols identifies the individuals, typically:
• Clear circle = unaffected female
• Dark circle = affected female
• Clear square = unaffected male
• Dark square = affected male

Sources:

“Pedigrees.” By Kahn Academy. Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/science/high-school-biology/hs-classical-genetics/hs-pedigrees/v/pedigrees Licensed under: CC-BY: Attribution License