0 a person, animal, or organism that has two different forms of a gene (= part of a cell containing DNA information) that controls a particular characteristic, one inherited from each parent, and is therefore able to pass on either form:
Heterozygotes have no manifestations of disease.
Both parents were heterozygotes for PK deficiency.
In areas where malaria is common, heterozygotes have a strong selective advantage.
If all heterozygotes have the same fitness, then the rare chromosome doubles in frequency in every generation.
In our experiment, overdominant mutations will be scored as beneficial because we are scoring heterozygotes.
The loss in successful outcross pollen in the heterozygote is then compensated by a gain in outcrossed ovules.
These loci were not statistically dependent with no apparent heterozygote deficit or excess.
We assume that all mutations segregating in the population are equally deleterious and have equivalent fitness effects in heterozygotes.
Selection against heterozygotes is also unlikely because deviations were detected for 3 of the 6 polymorphic loci analysed.
