What does a heterozygous genotype consist of?

A heterozygous genotype consists of two different alleles for a specific gene. In genetics, an allele is a variation of a gene that can produce different traits; for instance, a gene for flower color may have a red allele and a white allele. When an organism inherits one allele from each parent, and these alleles are different, the organism is considered heterozygous for that gene.

This genetic condition plays a critical role in inheritance patterns and can influence the phenotype, or observable traits, of an organism. Heterozygous individuals can exhibit traits influenced by both alleles, often resulting in a blend or dominance of one trait over the other. In contrast, homozygous genotypes, which consist of identical alleles, do not demonstrate this variability in trait expression. Additionally, while one of the alleles in a heterozygous pair may be dominant and the other recessive, the defining feature of heterozygosity is simply that the two alleles are different.