Don’t Worry, Men: The Y Chromosome Isn’t Dying Out

For a long time , biologist have predicted that the Y chromosome — the deoxyribonucleic acid that make men men — was step by step croak out , and that it would eventually lead to the extiniction of the male of the species . fortuitously , a team of researchers has proven that is n’t the case .

It used to be , a long prison term ago , that the X and Y chromosome were the same size and shape . Then , about 166 million years ago , a huge chunk of the Y chromosome was turn upside down and reinserted . Nobody quite knows why . Since , the Y chromosome has lost 781 of the 800 genes it in the beginning share with the X chromosome , all thanks to mutation . It ’s this which precede to conjecture that it would eventually disappear .

But according to enquiry from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge , Massachusetts , that ’s not the case . A squad of researchers has compare the human Y chromosome to that of the rhesus macaque – a primate that diverged from humans around 25 million years ago . The rascal ’s Y chromosome hold just 20 factor , and 19 of them are identical to those of the human Y.

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So , in 25 million years , only one gene has been misplace from the human Y chromosome . The research appears inthis week ’s issue of Nature . speak to New Scientist , Jennifer Hughes , one of the researchers , say :

“ We last have empirical data that the Y chromosome has hold in unshakable over the last 25 million years . Most of the Y chromosome ’s gene loss happened almost immediately after it stopped recombining with the X chromosome . ”

In theory , the remaining 19 genes serve vital biologic social occasion , so there ’s trivial chance of them disappear . That means that we can take a breather happy in the knowledge that the rest of Y chromosome is going nowhere fast . Good news show , chaps . [ NatureandNew ScientistviaGawker ; Image : The National Institute of Standards and Technology ]

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