Question

How many types of gametes can be produced by a diploid organism who is heterozygous for 4 loci?

• A. 12
• B. 4
• C. $16$
• D. $32$

Answer 1

Answer: (C)

Gene locus is a fixed position of a gene on a chromosome. Heterozygotes contain contrasting alleles for an allelic pair. Therefore, if a diploid organism is heterozygous at four loci, it will have four different contrasting characters present at four different loci.
Hence, the types of gametes produced will be $=$ $2^n$ where $n$ is number of heterozygous loci. Thus, gametes produced by a diploid organism could be $2^4=16$ .