dihybrid cross

A dihybrid cross describes a mating experiment between two organisms that are identically hybrid for two traits. A hybrid organism is one that is heterozygous, which means that is carries two different alleles at a particular genetic position, or locus. Therefore, a dihybrid organism is one that is heterozygous at two different genetic loci. In 1865, Gregor Mendel performed dihybrid crosses on pea plants and discovered a fundamental law of genetics called the Law of Independent Assortment. Mendel began his experiments by first crossing two homozygous parental organisms that differed with respect to two traits. An organism that is homozygous for a specific trait carries two identical alleles at a particular genetic locus.

Mendel chose to cross a pea plant that was homozygous and dominant for round (RR), yellow (YY) seeds with a pea plant that was homozygous and recessive for wrinkled (rr), green (yy) seeds, represented by the following notation:

RRYY x rryy

Organisms in this initial cross are called the parental, or P generation. The offspring of the RRYY x rryy cross, which is called the F1 generation, were all heterozygous plants with round, yellow seeds and the genotype RrYy.

Next, Mendel crossed two plants from the F1 generation. This step is the dihybrid cross, and it is represented as:

RrYy x RrYy

Mendel observed that the F2 progeny of his dihybrid cross had a 9:3:3:1 ratio and produced nine plants with round, yellow seeds, three plants with round, green seeds, three plants with wrinkled, yellow seeds and one plant with wrinkled, green seeds. From his experiment, Mendel observed that the pairs of traits in the parental generation sorted independently from one another, from one generation to the next.