What are the multiple alleles? Give examples.

Multiple alleles refer to a situation in genetics where a particular gene has more than two alternative forms, or alleles, in a population. Each individual organism still possesses only two alleles for a specific gene, but there are more than two alleles present in the overall population. Multiple alleles can result from genetic variations such as mutations or polymorphisms.

Here are a few examples of genes with multiple alleles:

ABO blood type: The ABO gene has three main alleles—A, B, and O. These alleles determine the different blood types: individuals can have blood type A (AA or AO), blood type B (BB or BO), blood type AB (AB), or blood type O (OO).

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system: The genes in the HLA system play a crucial role in the immune response. They have numerous alleles, and different combinations of these alleles determine an individual's unique set of HLA proteins, which are important for tissue compatibility during organ transplantation.

Coat color in rabbits: The gene responsible for coat color in rabbits, called the C locus, has multiple alleles. The most common ones are C (full color), cch (chinchilla, light gray), and c (albino, white).

Human eye color: Eye color is influenced by multiple genes, and one of the genes involved is OCA2. This gene has several alleles associated with eye color variation, such as brown, blue, green, and gray.

Human Hb gene (hemoglobin): The Hb gene has multiple alleles, including HbA (normal), HbS (sickle cell), HbC (hemoglobin C), and HbE (hemoglobin E). These alleles lead to different forms of hemoglobin and are associated with various blood disorders.

These examples illustrate how multiple alleles contribute to genetic diversity within populations by creating different variations of a gene's expression or function.