Marla is a known carrier of the sickle cell allele, while Jerry is unsure of his genotype. The couple have 3 children, and one is diagnosed with sickle cell disease (SCD). What is Jerry’s genotype?
Given that Marla is a known carrier of the sickle cell allele, we can determine her genotype as Ss, where S represents the sickle cell allele and s represents the normal allele.
The child diagnosed with sickle cell disease must have inherited an allele from each parent, one from Marla and one from Jerry. Since Marla is an Ss carrier, the child must have received the sickle cell allele (S) from Marla. Therefore, the child’s genotype is Ss.
Since the child has SCD, we know that Jerry must have also passed on the sickle cell allele to the child. This means that Jerry’s genotype must also be Ss.
Therefore, Jerry’s genotype is Ss.