Saturday, September 17, 2005

A B AB O

There are four basic blood types, in order of frequency from most common to rarest they are: O, A, B, and AB. Blood type is determined by the "alleles" that we inherit from our parents. Alleles are possible types of a particular gene, in this case the blood type gene. There are three basic blood type alleles: A, B, and O. We all have two alleles, one inherited from each parent. The possible combinations of the three alleles are:

OO, AO, BO, AB, AA, BB

Blood types A and B are called "codominant" alleles, while O is "recessive." A codominant allele is apparent even if only one is present; a recessive allele is apparent only if two recessive alleles are present. Since blood type O is recessive, it is not apparent if the person inherits an A or B allele along with it.

So, the possible allele combinations result in a particular blood type in this way:

OO = blood type O
AO = blood type A
BO = blood type B
AB = blood type AB
AA = blood type A
BB = blood type B

You can see that a person with blood type B may have a B and an O allele, or they may have two B alleles. If both parents are blood type B and both have a B and a recessive O, then their children will either be BB (if each parent passed on the B allele), BO (if one parent passed on B and the other parent passed on O), or OO (if both parents passed on the O allele). If the child is BB or BO, they have blood type B. If the child is OO, he or she will have blood type O.

Parents' Blood TypesPossible ChildrenImpossible Children
A & AA, OB, AB
A & BA, B, AB, Onone
A & ABA, B, ABO
A & OA, OB, AB
B & BB, OA, AB
B & ABA, B, ABO
B & OB, OA, AB
AB & ABA, B, ABO
AB & OA, BAB, O
O & OOA, B, AB

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So, A or O is possible.
hohoho~~~

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