About: Biparental inheritance

Biparental inheritance is a type of biological inheritance where the progeny inherits a maternal and a paternal allele for one gene. It is one of the criteria for Mendelian inheritance. Sexual reproduction, where offspring result from the fusion of gametes from two parents, is the most common form of biparental inheritance. While less common, cases of biparental inheritance in extranuclear genes have been documented, such as biparental inheritance of mitochondrial DNA, or chloroplast DNA in plants. Biparental inheritance of nuclear DNA by way of sexual reproduction can allow for new combinations of alleles from each contributing parent. The production of gametes through meiosis can sometimes include recombination, or crossing-over, which is a possibility for novel combinations of alleles.