How inheritance works
What gets passed down, and how.
Questions
Key terms
- Variant
- A small difference in a gene's spelling between people.
- Allele
- One of the alternative versions of a gene you can carry.
- Inheritance
- How genetic information passes from parents to children.
- Dominant
- A variant that shows its effect even if you carry only one copy.
- Recessive
- A variant that shows its effect only if you carry two copies.
- Carrier
- Someone with one copy of a recessive variant who is usually healthy themselves.