Does compound heterozygote mean both alleles comes from one parent only or one allele from each parent?
For each gene, there are two alleles, one allele from each parent. We are here talking about mutations. If both those alleles have a mutation, but not the same one, these mutations are called compound heterozygous. “Compound heterozygote: The presence of two different mutant alleles at a particular gene locus, one on each chromosome of a pair. The human genome contains two copies of each gene, a paternal and a maternal allele. A mutation affecting only one allele is called heterozygous. A homozygous mutation is the presence of the identical mutation on both alleles of a specific gene. However, when both alleles of a gene harbor mutations, but the mutations are different, these mutations are called compound heterozygous.
