Based on the acquired knowledge from the genetic course, not all traits are inherited equally. Some of the traits gain control from more than one gene. One of the perfect illustrations is the case of polygenic inheritance. In polygenic inheritance, the genes that contribute to the effective control of a trait exceed one. Critically, this indicates that the dominant allele focus on adding to the expression of the adjacent allele. One of the polygenic traits is height. In the case of the height as a polygenic trait, there are at least three genes involved in the controlling of the trait. The three genes operate in controlling the height with six alleles (Benonisdottir et al., 2016). For example, if an individual is dominant for all the available alleles for height, he or she will be very tall.
In the case of height, there is the essence of the continuous variation. Unlike the case of Mendel’s pea plants, humans do not come in two specific height varieties concerning tall and short. Notably, people do not even come in the four, eight, or sixteen heights. Rather, there are various people with different heights (Lai, 2006). It is also possible for height to vary following the increments of inches, as well as fraction of inches. Height experiences a complex pattern in terms of inheritance. For example, there are diverse cases of tall parents having short children. It is also possible for short parents to have tall children.
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Besides, parents of diverse heights might or might not have children in the middle. It is possible for the siblings with same parents to have diverse heights, which fail to fall into a specific category. It is impossible for the simple models concerning one or two genes to predict height inheritance patterns accurately. This is a reflection of polygenic inheritance as more than one gene contributes to the control of the inheritance. Because of the environmental implications, I would expect variation of heights with twins. In this trait, I have learned that more than one gene controls it. Additionally, I learned that tall parents or short parents could have children who are short or tall, respectively as a reflection of variation of the trait.
References
Benonisdottir, S., Oddsson, A., Helgason, A., Kristjansson, R. P., Sveinbjornsson, G., Oskarsdottir, A., & Jensson, B. O. (2016). Epigenetic and genetic components of height regulation. Nature Communications, 7 , 13490.
Lai, C. Q. (2006). How much of human height is genetic and how much is due to nutrition. Scientific American , 11 .
