Suppose that you and 19 of your classmates (giving a final population of 10 male

Question

Suppose that you and 19 of your classmates (giving a final population of 10 males and 10 females) are on a cruise, and your ship sinks near a deserted island. You and all of your friends make it to shore and start a new population isolated from the rest of the world. Two of your friends carry the recessive allele (i.e, are heterozygous) for phenylketonuria. If the frequency of this allele does not change as the population on your island increases, what will be the incidence of phenylketonuria on your island? 3.

Explanation / Answer

The population of 20 people comprise 40 alleles. Out of these 40 alleles, 2 are for phenylketonuria. Assigning this allele to 'q', we get q=2/40=1/20=0.05=5%.
Now as per Hardy-Weinberg principle, if the frequency of the recessive allele in a population is q then the incidence/frequency of homozygous recessive allele individuals will be q2 = q*q = 0.05*0.05 = 0.0025 = 0.25%
Hence, 0.25% of the population will be born with Phenlyketonuria. ANSWER

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