Genetic Question

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:53 pm

Is it possible for an allele set to have two different letters? I'm wondering because I had this random thought while typing up the wolf info.

If I had Tt for T-Power and Mm for magic, lets say. T would be dominate and t recessive...same with M and m. Now, TT, Tt and tt would all be t-power abilities. MM, Mm and mm would all be magic abilities. However if a wolf ended up with Tm, it would have telepathic abilities and the magic ones are dormant and they cannot use them, but do carry it. Same with Mt. MT/TM or mt/tm would end up have BOTH traits, either as recessive or dominate.

Make sense?

Dunno...it makes sense to me. LOL

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:10 pm

Sure it would make sense, because then two with dual-typed genes would be able to produce offspring that had either as well.

Just treat it the same as you would any other gene, but you'd need to decide whether one (magic or t) is dominant over the other, or whether both can be used by the same creature. (I'd say co-dominant if it's MT, while you'd want to decide one over the other if it inherits mt instead.)

Post by **Dray** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:31 pm

Wouldn't t/m wind up with neither of either ability?

Or are you saying that a dominant T or M overpowers a recessive t or m to the point where only one manifests, whereas TM and tm are of equal strength, so both show up? o.o

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 5:03 pm

[quote=Dray]Or are you saying that a dominant T or M overpowers a recessive t or m to the point where only one manifests, whereas TM and tm are of equal strength, so both show up? o.o[/quote]

Ditto...only because I think a lot of us, myself expecially, combine T-Power and magic when we have a Pernese, Alskyrian wolf bred with a Rerriian, Elruvian or Canese wolf rather then picking one power. I know some don't, and that would explain, why, no?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 6:25 pm

Personally... T and M in the same pairing would confuse me.

TT MM / TT Mm / Tt Mm / tt mm - sure... because two alleles aren't just "disappearing" randomly then. Going from TT and MM to TM makes me go "what about the other two?"

Just my two cents...

There is nothing to stop you, like, having the two genes work together... or having one overrule the other (ie. If they have TT, it stops the MM/Mm/mm showing all together or something...)

delyar · Post by **delyar** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 6:30 pm

Genetically it makes no sense because the allele vanishes. Even if that gene is not expressed, it's still there, scientifically. Dominance instead of codominance of linked alleles is possible, though, which is probably what you're looking for. (ie. TT overrides mm)

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 6:41 pm

This is the part of genetics that confuse me.

Of course, all I need is a code that resembles genetices but are not actuall genetics. So while itt's not genetically possible, it can give us/me a clear idea of what can happen. That's true with the Pern code...it just helps decide the outcome. There are alleles/genes that arn't seen but would be there. I just sum them up with C1C2 and such...*nods* Does that make sense? Real genetics really confuse me, honestly.

So, maybe don't look at them like alleles...just letters that "decide" the powers that can result. Though, what Delyar siad makes sense now that I re-read it....that's possible though all the Alskyrian/Pernese wolves would have mm, I think...(now it starts to confuse me....Pernese can have a small magical trait...unless they would be TT MM...or would it be TTMM...?)

Post by **Dray** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:40 pm

Maybe you can have it working so that whenever both alleles are equal in dominance or recessiveness, both powers manifest. This would mean that TTMM, TtMm and ttmm code for one psionics rating and one magical ability each -- maybe the dominance of the individual alleles codes for how strong or rare that ability is. TTMM would give you a really powerful critter. TtMm would be fairly average in terms of rating and magical ability. ttmm would give you a wolf with two different powers but both of those powers would be relatively weak.

Having unbalanced alleles would then mean that the wolf gets only one power or the other; TTMm would give you a stronger telepath, all the way down to ttMm, which would give you a relatively weak magic user? Here, let me try to break it down. X3

So a rundown of the possible combinations:
TTMM: Wolf has one psionic rating (high) and one magic ability (relatively rare) magic ability
TTMm: Wolf has a high psionic rating, but no magic ability
TTmm: Wolf has a medium-high psionic rating, but no magic ability
TtMM: Wolf has a rare magic ability, but no psionics
TtMm: Wolf has one medium-strength psionic ability and one somewhat rare magic ability
Ttmm: Wolf has a relatively weak psionic rating
ttMM: Wolf has a somewhat rare magic ability
ttMm: Wolf has a fairly common magic ability
ttmm: Wolf has a low psionic rating AND a common magic ability

Of course this wouldn't explain Pernese populations given that in order to have psionics but no magic, you would inevitably run into 'ttmm' at some point, since the wolves would likely all be either TTmm or Ttmm, and you know how those crazy F1 generationers like to intermingle them genes!

Maybe Pernese wolves cull pups that display magic of any sort, given it would be relatively rare?

And a last thought: maybe you would want to switch the more powerful psionics and magic to the recessive genes, so that all expressed T's and M's give weaker powers, and all expressed t's and m's give stronger powers. I'm not sure if it would make a difference, the way I've written it out, but it would keep the idea of stronger powers being more recessive alive!

delyar · Post by **delyar** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:43 pm

WARNING: Science/math content ahead!

Stronger powers to the recessive allele usually makes them rarer, but also never quite possible to eradicate. For example, you'll probably never encounter a ttmm but there'll be SOME TtMm's out there all the time in a dominantly TTMM society. (This is seen IRL with fatal recessive conditions, so long as the heterozygote isn't fatal. It also leads to some weird shit with sickle cell anemia, which is hetero and actually beneficial over both homozygotes.)

Keep in mind: p^2+2pq+q^2=1, in terms of probability.
Where p is the abundance of the dominant ALLELE, so T, whereas q is the abundance of the recessive ALLELE, so t. Thus a decrease in one usually leads to an increase in the other. However, unless q is 0, there will always be some heterozygotes flopping around and potentially making homozygous recessive babies.

The main difference between the dominant and the recessive allele is which one "shows up" in the heterozygous offspring (the dominant). As such, if you want the condition to be less common, it's usually safer to stick it as recessive and make that allele have a very low frequency.

Examples,
An equal distribution of alleles (p=0.5, q=0.5), leads to: 25% TT, 50% Tt, 25% tt.
Whereas a slightly more skewed distribution of alleles (p=0.75, q=0.25), leads to: 56% TT, 36% Tt, 8% tt
And extremely skewed (p=0.9, q=0.1), leads to: 90% TT, 18% Tt, 2% tt

All of that to say that while you can't, theoretically, eradicate the allele completely from a balanced population (especially an introduced population), it is possible to push it into obscurity and only have the occasional mutant crop up if you make it the recessive allele and very infrequent.

Hopefully that made sense. Forgive me, I just wrote a lab and I tend to go equation happy. This was probably excessive.

Summary:

I think making TT = no T-power and MM = no magic makes more sense for the Pernese wolves because it means TtMm will also be no magic (unless you apply codominance/blended dominance, in which case it's weak magic).

However, you run into awkwardness with the more magicky types by making TtMm = no T-power, no magic (or weak weak) unless your portion of TTMM individuals is very tiny and even then you'll get some magicless freaks every now and then.

But in general, following a genotype by genotype description like Dray posted should work. :)

Post by **Dray** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 8:20 am

Yay for having someone who's actually studying this stuff. The last class I took that involved genetics was... seven years ago?! XD It really shows.

The only problem I see with making TTMM no abilities would be that them thar Pern wovles need to generally have low psionic ratings, not none. XD In their case it would be more like they'd need the largest distribution of TTMm -- weakest psionics that aren't equally balanced so that magic shows up?

So they'd need like '(p=0.9, q=0.1)' for T's and '(p=0.5, q=0.5)' for M's, I guess?

Yakima, if you decide to go this route, you should totally credit Delyar. XD Girl knows what she's talking about.

delyar · Post by **delyar** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:01 am

Yay someone understood! I was beginning to worry I'd deteriorated into jibberish land.

JKatkina · Post by **JKatkina** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:05 am

Nah! I read it early morning and still managed to get it, too. :3 But then, I like genetics. It's like math I want to do!

Post by **Dray** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:11 am

I didn't try to puzzle out the equation itself, though I understood the dumbed down parts well enough!

I'd imagine that the T vs. t might be good enough for the psionics ratings (1 thru 10, from weakest to strongest, right?) because you could say that any combination of TM thru tm would give some number between that.

For the different magic abilities, and having the kinds of magic attached to the M locus... how would that work? (XD Now it's not so much a question about winged wolves for me as trying to figure out how loci would work! I'm curious!) Would the different kinds of magic have to have dominance over one another, or would the ones attached to M simply show over the ones attached to 'm'? And do loci swap sometimes, so the one attached to M might swap with the one attached to m?

Delyar, you should make some genetic critters to show us how it's done. XDD

delyar · Post by **delyar** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:52 am

It depends. If the magic is codominant (ie. can have more than one type active) then they'd probably be at different loci so m1 m2 m3 etc, where they can coexist. So M1M1/M1m1 would be that type of magic is absent, m1m1 would be that type of magic is present. m1m1m2m2 would be both types are present etc. Though that risks being a long code.

If one magic overrides the other... I'm not certain how to represent that. It'd probably be phenotype not genotype that would show that. So M1m1m2m2 could mean that only the m2m2 would show.

Phenotype = physical/visual type
Genotype = genetic type

So long as you explain what genotype leads to what phenotype, it should be doable. Though explaining magic inheritance by genetics is, naturally, quite wonky.

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:56 pm

>.<That>.<)

It is possible to get a wolf who has no interest (or has a fear of) magic and refuses to use it no matter how much magic is in his/her blood. These wolves still have magic and if they are pushed, instinct will take over and there magic will protect them if they're lives are in danger. Still, they do not take the title of Mage and have never been trained so they are, if there magic reacts, a dangerous foe and unstable one (to others and themselves as untrained/controlled magic has dangers).

Anyway, enough ramble.

Delyar, you might become my prime source for all this. *nodnod* I know someone was going to point out some issues with my Pern code but I forgot who and I never got there input. That code works for what I want it to (mostly, we have so many variations it's hard to fit them all), but if you have a method for determining colors within the C, T and N alleles, I would be very, very happy! LOL

Of course I'm going to cite her, Dray! I gave you credit for my Pern code...*grins* 'course, I need to put that page back up...*wanders off to do that*