Which is the dominant eye colour in reproduction?

Question

I have dark brown eyes,my wife has deep blue eyes and both my daughters have crystal clear blue eyes.Someone once told me that if one parent has brown eyes and the other has blue eyes then nine times out of ten-the kids will have brown eyes.I think they were talking nonsense but is there a determining genetic factor on eye colour?

Answer 1

Well, its not so clear cut, trust me, im a biologist, i had to learn about this! any way, u have 2 alleles in your genes that contribute to eye colour, one inherited from your father and one from your mother. The allele for brown eyes is dominant to the allele for blue eyes; so for example if u have a blue eye and a brown eye allele in your genes, then u will end up with having brown eyes. To have blue eyes both ur alleles that u inherited must be for blue eyes.
Your wife definitely has two blue eyed alleles in her genes (because she has blue eyes!), u on other hand must have two different alleles in your genes; one for brown eyes and one for blue eyes. One of your parents/ grandparents must have passed this one 2 u! U have brown eyes, because the brown eyed allele dominated the blue eyed allele in ur genetic make-up.
Your children have inherited a blue-eyed allele from u and a blue-eyed allele from their mother ending up with blue eyes! This happens on a 50:50 chance, u were lucky!
I hope this helped u, i tried 2 explain all the science! lol x

Answer 2

Actually they weren't talking nonsense! The brown eye gene is dominant to the blue eye gene (which is recessive). Each gene has 2 parts (chromosomes I think!). Since you are brown eyed it must be that you possess 1 X Brown eye chromosome and 1 X Blue (hence why your eyes are Brown), your wives chromosomes must both be Blue (because if one of them was Brown she would have Brown eyes too!). Both your children have Blue eyes and what happens is that the when the genes split your wife will always produce the blue eye chromosome and you have a fifty/fifty chance of producing the Brown or Blue eye chromosome, it just so happened in both cases you passed on your recessive blue gene which combined with your wives meant both your daughters have blue eyes! Basically there is a 50/50 chance of your children having blue or brown eyes. Your genes make the decision rather than your wife's. If you had 2 brown eye chromosomes then your children would always have brown eyes! Hope this solves the dilemma!

Answer 3

In the genetics of eye colour, the gene for brown eyes is dominant over the gene for blue eyes.

As you have brown eyes but your kids have blue eyes, this means that one of the pair of eye colour genes you have inherited from your own parents must be for blue eyes. As the brown eye gene is dominant, the blue eye gene is not expressed.

Your wife must have two blue eye genes for blue eyes to be expressed. Therefore both your kids have taken your recessive blue eye gene instead of the brown eye gene, and either one of your wife's blue eye genes.

The chance of you and you wife having a brown eyed child is 50%. Try again...you never know!

You : br/bl = brown
Your wife : bl/bl = blue
Your kids : bl/bl = blue


Who was the guy who answered 'the kids usually take the fathers eye colour'? Go read a basic book on genetics and don't answer questions you don't know anything about.

Answer 4

The dominant colour is brown.

There are two alleles for eye colour. You inherit one allele from the mother and one from the father. I would suggest that one of your parents had blue eyes, and since blue is recesive that parent would have two blue alleles, and the other parent had brown eyes and would have either two brown alleles or one brown and one blue allele.

This would mean that you would have brown eyes and would have one blue allele and one brown allele. Your wife will have two blue alleles. There is then a 50% chance of your children having blue eyes.

If your genes contained two brown alleles and given that your wife has two blue alleles then there would be a 25% chance of your children having blue eyes.

I hope this is helpful

Answer 5

Eye colour, just as skin colour is determined in humans by several genes, so the colour is nos very easily determined, eventhough dark colours are dominant. You would have to say what colour are your parents' eyes and your wives', so I could get a better idea, but I can tell you that there is a very high possibility that there are light eye coloured people in your family and probably in your wife's family there's someone with lighter eyes than hers (in parents or grandparents, brothers don't count for this). In short, it's not so easy to determine human characteristics because not only one gene is involved, so there are a lot of possible phenotypes, or colours.

Answer 6

Brown is the dominant gene...since wife's eyes are blue, she has the genome (bb). You obviously have a recessive blue gene in yours so your genome is (Bb). That means each child you have has a 50% chance of having either Brown or blue eyes.

----b------b---

B (Bb) (Bb)

b (bb) (bb)

The top row, b b is the mother with blue eyes and 2 recessive genes. The column down the side is the father with browns eyes, one dominant gene and one recessive gene. The groupings are the possible combination of children you can have. If the child gets the dominant gene, (s)he will have brown eyes.



Edit: Princess is right in her descriptions but wrong in her calculations....don't know where she came up with those combinations but to get the percentages you have to make a grid such as the one I made in my answer.

Answer 7

For eye color in the children I have been told the following. This is how the genetics works out. Two alleles from the mother and two from the father make up the eye color. In short its these four alleles that decide the eye color. As blue is a recessive gene, for eyes to be blue all four alleles have to be blue - two from the mother and two from the father of the child. In your case your wife has obviously contributed two blue alleles. You might have brown eyes but if an ancestor of yours had blue you could still carry the blue allele even though recessive and thus contribute the two blue alleles. If no ancestor ever on both your fathers and mothers side had blue eyes then it would be impossible to contribute two blue alleles.

Answer 8

In eye colour, the blue gene is always recessive and the brown gene is dominant. This means if you have a blue gene and a brown gene your eye colour will be brown. The only way you have blue eyes is if you have two blue genes.

Answer 9

The eye colour of a person depends on their genetic makeup. For every characteristic, like eye colour, you have two genes. One gene is from your father and one gene is from your mother. In many cases one of these two genes is "stronger". This "stronger" gene is called the dominant gene and the other gene is called the recessive gene. In eye colour, the blue gene is always recessive and the brown gene is dominant. This means if you have a blue gene and a brown gene your eye colour will be brown. The only way you have blue eyes is if you have two blue genes.

Br -- Brown gene
Bl -- Blue gene

Bl / Br = Brown eyes
Br / Bl = Brown eyes
Br / Br = Brown eyes
Bl / Bl = Blue eyes

You can see that there is only a 1 in 4 chances of having blue eyes.

Hazel is a light form of brown eyes. You and your sister have two blue genes (Bl / Bl), your parents probably have one of each (Bl / Br).



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Answer 10

Brown eyes are dominant. Others in both your families must have the blue eyes trait and your daughters have gained both blue eyed genes from both you and your wife's genetic makeup.