Biology Forum Genetics Chromosomes

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    • #4514
      Jo-D
      Participant

      I have been thinking about the following questions, any assistance is much appreciated!
      1) why is that human embryos with 3 copies of chromosome 1 (ie extra copy of chromosome 1) die, yet adults with an extra Y-chromosome are perfectly healthy?

      2) how do you distinguish whether a karyotype is lethal or not and the sex of the individual with that karyotype? say: 45, X or 69, XXX

      Thanks!

    • #46905
      Poison
      Participant

      Chromosome abnormalities can be tolerated to a point. If this is on sex chromosomes, they are often tolerated.(There must be one X present. you can not have a YO zygote alive- but well this is very rare .) The individual is not normal but can live. Also some autosomal chromosone abnormalities can be tolerated too. Like 21.chromosome trisomy (leads to down sydrome).

      I couldn’t understand your second question.

    • #46949
      Jo-D
      Participant

      sorry um i didnt quite understand, i get the first part of the first question, but yeh y is it that extra Y chromosome dont have a major effect where as an extra chromosome 1(i assume they mean X chromosome right?)

    • #47018
      Poison
      Participant

      You can think like sex chromosomes are not that important compared to others. But X is important, no zygote can survive without X. From a point you can think that X is more important that Y for the organism to survive.
      Extra Y does not have a major effect? XYY leads to Supermale syndrome(Also known as XYY trisomy or Jacob’s (hope I remember right) syndrome). Yes, XYY male looks normal, but if I don’t remember wrong, they are usually more agressive and some scientist say they have more tendency to commit a crime.
      From another point of view, (actually this is my comment), if you think about XXY, XX is female and XY is male, having XXY is a situation like not being able to decide being female or male. If you have a look at XYY, XY is male and YY is nothing. So the person is obviously male.
      I don’t know if it helped or not, but hope it did. 🙂

    • #48315
      scottyiu
      Participant

      So is it possible to have a Y and none or YY?

    • #48329
      Poison
      Participant

      Theoritically yes. But you usually do not recognise if that happens because the growth does not go any futher.

    • #48337
      scottyiu
      Participant

      So are you saying that anyone with YO or YY won’t really survive very long?

    • #48406
      Poison
      Participant

      survive? No. Probably die after fertilization.

    • #48408
      mith
      Participant

      how would you have a YY embryo???? A sperm can’t fertilize itself….

    • #48477
      scottyiu
      Participant

      But then how do you get XYY anyway? two sperm plus an egg? 😉

    • #48485
      Poison
      Participant

      No,
      A sperm carrying XY (they are not seperated), and an egg.

      XY+X=XXY

      Or
      An egg carrying XX (not seperated again), and a sperm carrying Y.

      XX+Y=XXY

      🙂

    • #48486
      Poison
      Participant
      quote mithrilhack:

      how would you have a YY embryo???? A sperm can’t fertilize itself….

      Yes, I was talking about YO sorry, I didn’t see that. 🙂

    • #48631
      daniel.kurz
      Participant

      If you have XXY or more than 2 Xs and a Y you have something callled Nondisjunction or trisomy. This generally means that you develop down syndrome during development. You can’t have a YY because YY only codes for a certain number of chromsomes. You must have at least one X chromosome for the coding of tissues to be developed. The X chromsome codes for all the needed proteins and cells needed to develop. Without those codes the embryo will not develop.

    • #48632
      LilKim
      Participant

      if you have XXY you have kleinfelters…. (and if you have XXXY you still have kleinfelters)

      down syndrome is caused by trisomy 21 (it has nothing to do with the sex chromosomes)

      Both klienfelters and trisomy 21 are a consequence of non-disjunction.

      There are many examples of males born with XYY and XYYY… in the past, they even tried to link this karyotype with aggresiveness, violent behavior and other social problems (.. scientists tried to prove that a significanltly greater population of male prison inmates had this these karytypes …. however, no one has ever conclusively shown it to be true)

      Thus XYY doesn’t code for "a certain number of chromosomes" .. it’s simply just another sex chromosome complement.

      As far as an X chromosome.. yes, 1 X chromosome is necessary for survival… however all of the other autosomal chromosomes code for other genes necessary for life.

      (other genes necessary for life and normalcy exist at other genomic locations besides the X chromosome … that’s why monosomy of any autosomal chromosome is a lethal condition)

      hope i’ve clarified some stuff for ya
      – kim

    • #48669
      daniel.kurz
      Participant

      Well the cases of XXXY or more X chromosomes are extremely rare. That is why you will rarely find a calico male cat. The chromosomes for calico spots is only found in that of women because it is controlled by the X chromosomes. This is caused by selective chromsomes and they can turn on and off. You must have two XXs so a male calico is automatically a case of trisomy.

    • #49887
      oana_t
      Participant

      there are more cases that can make determine death.for example there are some genes called the lethal genes which provoke the death of the death of the egg in homozygote stadium.also an egg can’t survive if it doesn’t have the x chromosone.there are some syndroms as well for example :klinefelter when the chromosomes are XXY and Turner when the individual has no Y gene.

    • #50920
      student12
      Participant

      Just curiosity…how do you get a Y0?

    • #50921
      LilKim
      Participant

      So i’ll start of with nomenclature. In the past, the convention for writing turner syndrom was ’45,XO’ however more recently the karyotype was modified to: 45,X … simply because there is no such thing as an ‘O’ chromosome.

      An X chromosome is necessary for life… so no human being can be born without an X chromosome.. thus a : 45,Y would not produce a viable child… and the mother would probably abort the pregnancy very early

      – KIM

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