Eye color

[justinater22]

How can u guess at what genotype eye color your parents, and grandparents had? What eye colors are dominant and recessive? Do the colors mix? I ask this because my family has asked this question because my aunt has blue eyes and my uncle has brown eyes. Two kids have either blue or green but the third has a brown or hazel color. How is this possible?

[The Flaming Goldfish]

There are multiple genes that contribute to eye colour determination, but the dominant eye colour among humans is brown. Blue eyes follow a recessive inheritance pattern, but it's not considered a recessive trait because the determination for eye colour is polygenic. Other eye colours are due to a combination of optical effects, possible genetic contribution, and the distribution of melanin pigment in the iris of the individual person.

 

There are ways to predict eye colour--using a few SNPs, scientists were able to predict eye colour with about 90-93% accuracy, depending on the SNPs. Here's the article if you're interested: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126992.100-dna-test-for-eye-colour-could-help-fight-crime.html

[mansamusa]

would this also pertain to a different phenotype