Question

Explain: In dominant/recessive inheritance patterns, the dominant allele is always expressed when present. The recessive allele is only expressed when the dominant allele is not present. Use your observations from this activity to describe how codominant inheritance patterns differs from dominant/recessive inheritance patterns.

Answer 1

Codominance refers to a type of inheritance in which both alleles of a particular gene are expressed in the phenotype. In other words, no allele is completely dominant over the other. This differs from dominant/recessive inheritance patterns, in which only one copy of a dominant allele needs to be present to express the phenotype, and two copies of the recessive allele are required in order to express the recessive phenotype.

2) I'm not sure exactly what answer you are looking for here, but an example of codominance is individuals with blood type AB. In this case, the offspring inherits the A allele from one parent, and the B allele from the other parent. Such individuals express both A and B antigens on the surface of their red blood cells, making them phenotypically blood type AB.