In genetics, a reciprocal cross is a breeding experiment designed to test the role of parental sex on a given inheritance pattern.[1] All parent organisms must be true breeding to properly carry out such an experiment. In one cross, a male expressing the trait of interest will be crossed with a female not expressing the trait. In the other, a female expressing the trait of interest will be crossed with a male not expressing the trait. It is the cross that could be made either way or independent of the sex of the parents. For example, suppose a biologist wished to identify whether a hypothetical allele Z, a variant of some gene A, is on the male or female sex chromosome. She might first cross a Z-trait female with an A-trait male and observe the offspring. Next, she would cross an A-trait female with a Z-trait male and observe the offspring. Via principles of dominant and recessive alleles, she could then (perhaps after cross-breeding the offspring as well) make an inference as to which sex chromosome contains the gene Z, if either in fact did.
