Saturday, April 28, 2012

Y Chromosome

I figured I talked about the X chromosome when I wrote about X linked traits, why not talk about the Y chromosome? Only males have a Y chromosome and it is considerably smaller than the X chromosome. This means that it contains much less genetic information (which is why females have Barr Body formation).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome

Scientists believe that the Y chromosome is one of the fastest evolving pieces of genetic material in humans with a 30% difference in humans and primates. It contains somewhere between 70 and 200 genes, which they are actively working on identifying. While the Y chromosome does contain genes that are only found on this one chromosome, there are areas that have pseudoautosomal genes (an autosomal chromosome is a non sex determining chromosome), which means they are found on both the X and Y chromosome.

There are diseases that can be associated with the Y chromosome, such as 46,XX where a male will have two X chromosomes and one Y, 48,XXYY where he will have double of both sex chromosomes, and 47,XYY where he will have two copies of the Y chromosome. These can have symptoms anywhere from a tall stature to infertility.

I can't believe this is the second to last post for the A to Z Challenge. I hope everyone has learned at least one thing from my posts!

5 comments:

Gossip_Grl said...

Interesting info on the Y chromosone. I wasn't aware that this chromosone can affect infertility tho. Nice info.

Lost Star said...

Really interesting! :D

Lynda R Young as Elle Cardy said...

Interesting reading. And yeah, it is hard to believe the challenge is almost over. Yay, I can rest again at last!!! lol.

Nicole said...

Have I learned at least one thing from your posts? Yeah! You betcha! I kinda learned more than I expected too, lol, which is a good thing. I don't come across many science blogs so this was a nice detour from the many fiction and writing blogs :)

One of my cousins wanted to be a Chemist and then went into Medicine and is now changing to Politics/Law at the last minute.

~Nicole
Blog: The Madlab Post
@MadlabPost on Twitter

PR said...

Is being smaller and having less genetic information in the Y chromosome the reason for certain male characteristics lol? :P