Читать книгу Principles of Plant Genetics and Breeding - George Acquaah - Страница 260

Sometimes, one gene can affect multiple traits, a condition called pleiotropy. It is not hard to accept this fact when one understands the complex process of development of an organism in which the event of one stage is linked to those before (i.e. correlated traits). That is, genes that are expressed early in development of a trait are likely to affect the outcome of the developmental process. In sorghum, the gene hl causes the high lysine content of seed storage proteins to increase as well as cause the endosperm to be shrunken. Declaring genes to be pleiotropic is often not clear cut, since closely associated or closely linked genes can behave this way. Conducting a large number of crosses may produce a recombinant, thereby establishing that linkage, rather than pleiotropy, exists.