In genetics, a reciprocal cross is a breeding experiment designed to test the role of parental sex on a given inheritance pattern.
For example, suppose a biologist wished to identify whether a hypothetical allele Z, a variant of some gene A, is on the male or female sex chromosome.
Via principles of dominant and recessive alleles, they could then (perhaps after cross-breeding the offspring as well) make an inference as to which sex chromosome contains the gene Z, if either in fact did.
Sex linkage was first reported by Doncaster and Raynor in 1906[2] who studied the inheritance of a colour mutation in a moth, Abraxas grossulariata.
Although the males carry only one mutant allele like the females, the X-chromosome takes precedence over the Y and the recessive phenotype is shown.