Sex Linked Inheritance (Short Note)

A form of inheritance in which the transmission of the genetic material is correlated with the sex of the parents is called sex linked inheritance, or may genetic trait which is transmitted through sex chromosomes is called sex linked inheritance e.g. : Drosophila melanogaster, a common fruit fly. T. H. Morgan in 1910 performed various breeding experiments with wild type red eyed drosophila flies. He noticed white eyes mutant. This was male and turned out to be true breeding strain of white eyes flies. He crossed this white eyed male with true red eyes female.

F₁ and F₂ population followed the simple Mendelian ratio. When white eyed female was crossed with red eyed male, the results were not similar. When red eyed female XX is crossed with white eyes male XY, F₁ shows all red flies, females as well as male. F₂ shows red eyed and white eyed flies in ration 3:1 (all female are red but 1\2 male red and 1\2 male white eyed). Again female flies were two types one producing only red type offspring and another producing half red eyed and other half white eyed offsprings.