Simple Genetic Terminology of Your Cat

Don't worry, I'm not going to overwhelm you with high sophisticated genetics. I've tried to keep it as simple as necessary. I've also tried to give some examples from the practice, because my personal opinion is that all science is as good as we can use it.
At least you should become familiar with some few basic terms we'll use in our lessons.

Basic Genetics: Terms of genetics

Genes

Genes have their special loci on the chromosomes and are the basic elements on which heriditation is based upon.
There are genes responsible for each feature of Your cat to be inherited, for eye colour, bone structure, coat texture, coat colour, temperament, etc.
Genes are always present in pairs.

Alleles

Alleles are different mutants of the same gene.
For example the Gene for coat colour "Black" has 2 mutants, one for chocolate and one for cinnamon.

Homozygous

Your cat is to be said homozygous for one feature when it carries in its responsible gene pair the same gene twice, that means both genes of the gene pair are equal.

Heterozygous

Your cat is to be said heterozygous for one feature when the genes of the responsible gene pair are unequal.

Phenotype

How your cat looks like is called phenotype, it is the summary of all the features you can see on the outside of your cat.

Genotype

How your cat looks like inside, which features it can possibly inherit - you can't see those - is called the genotype, it is the summary of all genetic information which your cat carries and can inherit to its litter.

Dominant

A gene is to be said dominant when its effect can be seen in the phenotype of your cat.
Only one dominant gene in the gene pair must be present to be seen in the phenotype of your cat.
Note:
For easy reading dominant genes are written in capital letters; f.e. the gene B (for Black coat colour) is dominant over the gene b (for chocolate coat colour).

Rezessive

A gene is called recessive when its effect can not be seen in the phenotyp of your cat, when only one gene is present.
The same gene must be present twice in the gene pair that you can see its expression in the phenotype of your cat.
Note:
For easy reading recessive genes are written in small letters; on our example the gene b must be present twice (bb) that the coat colour is to become chocolate.

That's all what you need to know first.
These pages are enhanced continously. See you next time.
At the moment information starting with letter "A", "B", "C", "D", "I", "L", "O", "S", "T", "W", "X" and "Y" is available.

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Last modified on 99-01-16

Welcome ! You've decided to study a bit the genetics of your cats.