Waist of chromosome X

2001/12/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Genetika

With the aim of sequencing the centromer, genetics have worked for many years. But since they knew they had a very repetitive sequence, little has been advanced. So far no one has achieved a total sequencing: neither human, nor fly, nor other organisms. But now it begins to unravel that mystery of genetics, which has just revealed the sequence of the centromer of the human X chromosome.

The centromer is a fundamental structure on the chromosome: It participates in the folding of DNA and is similar to the waist of the chromosome. The two chromes of the chromosome are joined here, so it is of great importance in cell division, especially in the transport of chromosomes to the poles.

The sequenced centromer has a length of millions of base pairs, although it only has a repetitive sequence of 171 bases. However, although they have not been completely sequenced, the centromers of several species have seen that they have very different sequences, so it does not seem that the same sequence is very important.