Chromosome Y, the most variable

2010/03/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Genetika

The chimpanzee's Y chromosome has been sequenced from top to bottom at the Massachusetts Institute of Biomedical Research and, by comparing it with the human Y chromosome, they have seen that they are much more different from each other than the rest of chromosomes. The results have been published in the journal Nature.

The researchers have divided the observed differences in chromosome Y in two groups. On the one hand, they affirm that chromosome Y of chimpanzees has lost certain genes and that of humans has conquered many others. Consequently, the chromosome of chimpanzees has only two thirds of the number of genes of the human chromosome and only 47% of the parts that encode proteins in the human being are Y of chimpanzees.

On the other hand, chromosome Y has suffered important reorganizations, both human and chimpanzees. Thus, 30% of the Y chromosome of chimpanzees cannot be matched or homologated with the human Y chromosome. In the rest of chromosomes, on the contrary, it only happens in 2%.

To explain this degree of variability, researchers have proposed two mechanisms. On the one hand, they affirm that the development of new genes can allow improving sperm production. On the other hand, it is explained that the Y chromosome has no possibility of recombining with the X chromosome, so it tends by other ways to introduce changes in its sequence.