In a species that has five different alleles for a gene at a particular locus....?

Question

how many different alleles may be present in the somatic cels of one diploid individual?

A. one

B. two

C. three

D. none

Answer 1

Assuming this is a diploid organism, the usual answer will be 2 -- one allele inherited from each parent.  This works only if the locus is on one of the somatic (non-s*x) chromosomes.

If this is a diploid species, and the locus is on "the interesting end" of a s*x chromosomes (as you see in humans), the answer will be 1 or 2 -- 1 in the somatic cells of the heterogametic gender (like males in humans), and 2 in the somatic cells of the  homogametic gender.

Answer 2

B,  it doesn't matter how many alleles there are for a particular gene, if the organism is 2n it still only would get one form each parent.

Answer 3

The organism is diploid so the copy number is two.

Ploidy is the allele copy number = n

di for two so diploid is 2n

Genes can have a few or 30 allelic variants in a population but an individual inherits one copy from each parent. In rare cases the ploidy varies, especially in plants. Then it might be triploid (3n) or tetraploid (4n).http://davesgarden.com/guides/terms/go/1...