A disease called phenylketonuria causes mental retardation, reduces skin pigmentation, and also affects the coloration of urine. What kind of effect is exhibited by the gene responsible for this disease?

A: Pleiotropic

B: Epistatic

C: Polygenic

Question

A disease called phenylketonuria causes mental retardation, reduces skin pigmentation, and also affects the coloration of urine. What kind of effect is exhibited by the gene responsible for this disease? 

A: Pleiotropic

B: Epistatic

C: Polygenic

anonymous · Answer

Pleitropic means a gene has an effect on a number of phenotypes, epistatic means that a gene is affected by another gene and so the phenotype might be hidden. Polygenic means that a particular feature or characteristic is affected by a number of genes. I'll leave you to figure it out, best wishes,