Gene interactions

Gene interactions can result in the alteration or suppression of a phenotype. This can occur when an organism inherits two different dominant genes, for example, resulting in incomplete dominance. This is commonly seen in flowers, where breeding two flowers that pass down dominant genes can result in a flower of an unusual color caused by incomplete dominance. If red and white are dominant, for example, the offspring might be pinkish or striped in color as the result of a gene interaction.


The fruit fly is famously extensively studied in genetics and much of the understanding of how gene interactions works comes from working with the fruit fly in lab environments. In organisms like humans, where genetic experimentation is viewed as unethical, geneticists are forced to rely on data from the existing population to learn about dominant and recessive traits and to see how groups of genetic traits can interact. A gene interaction is the result of inheriting genes that conflict in some way, making it impossible for all of them to express as coded, or of inheriting a set of interrelated genes that interact with each other to express a phenotype.


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