If John and Jane's son was born with hemophilia, the son
inherited this gene from his mother Jane. It is a sex-linked trait which means that it
is transmitted on the X chromosome. The son would inherit an X from his mother and a Y
from his father. Therefore, Jane passed the trait to the son. The Y chromosome doesn't
carry the hemophilia gene and plays no role in its transmission. Let us use the symbol X
for normal and X- to represent hemophilia gene. If you cross John who has no hemophilia
and thus his genes are XY with Jane, who is clearly a carrier and her genes are XX-(one
of her X's has the normal gene and one is carrying the hemophilia gene), then you get
the following results. For the girls, 50% are normal (XX) and 50% are carrier
females(XX-) . For the boys, 50% are male hemophiliacs, or (X-Y) and 50% are normal
males (XY). Since the hemophilia gene is recessive to normal, in females, they can be
carriers without actually inheriting the disease, since females possess two X
chromosomes. However, with males, since they only have one X chromosome, if they inherit
from their mother the hemophilia gene, then, they get the disease and if they inherit
the normal gene on the X chromosome, then, they are normal.
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