Step 1:
Here is the building block (or box) that starts the process of our Punnett Square, pretty simple... so far.
Here is the building block (or box) that starts the process of our Punnett Square, pretty simple... so far.
Here we are looking at two adults (it does not matter if you put the male at the top or the female on the side or visa versa). When building a Punnett Square we allocate letters (which makes sense to us) to help break down the different alleles of the mutation. Here we will be working with two normal animals they will be designated NN. For learning purposes, I’ll mark each parent a separate colour to make it easier to determine which allele is being added to a particular box. The first parent is Normal (NN) and the second parent is (NN)
Now that we have each box designated with its own allele, it’s time to pair them up & figure out what this genetic combo will give us. The order in which the boxes are filled is “top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right” and the key thing to remember when filling in a Punnett square is “left, top…left, top.”
In other words, we start in the top left-hand box by filling in a letter from the left (N) and a letter from the top (N). So in this picture, we complete the upper-left-hand box. Next we move on to the bottom left box and do the exact same thing (left, top…left, top!!):
Next we move on to the bottom left box and do the exact same thing (left, top…left, top!!)
The next two steps repeat the exact same process for the top and bottom right-hand boxes.
The next two steps repeat the exact same process for the top and bottom right-hand boxes.
Now that our Punnett square is complete, we can see that all the offspring produced from this pairing will be normal, wild-type animals, as were both of the parents.
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