Heterozygous and homozygous are terms used to describe the pair of alleles an organism possesses. Diploid organisms contain two sets of matching chromosomes and thus two copies of every gene. For every pair of matched chromosomes, diploid organisms receive one chromosome from each parent. The chromosomes contain many different genes.
However, a single gene may have two different forms (called alleles) - a dominant allele and a recessive allele. The dominant allele is usually represented by a capital letter (A) and the recessive allele is represented by a lowercase letter (a).
If the organism contains two identical alleles (AA or aa), it is referred to as homozygous. If the organism contains one of each allele (Aa) it is referred to as heterozygous.
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