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Being a male is easier than it looks. The defining genetic feature of maleness, the Y chromosome, contains only two genes that are absolutely essential for male function – at least in mice. The discovery may someday help develop new forms of assisted reproduction for infertile men.
Until recently, many geneticists thought of the Y chromosome as a vestigial ruin full of decaying genes and doomed to evolutionary oblivion because, unlike all the other chromosomes, it lacks a second copy to serve as a backup when mutation strikes. However, the Y turns out to have other ways of repairing mutations, and recent evidence suggests that the chromosome has been relatively stable over the last 100 million years of evolution. However, most of its genes are involved in a single function, male reproduction.
Researchers have known for more than two decades that a single gene on the Y chromosome, called Sry, is responsible for sex determination. Transgenic mice lacking a Y chromosome but with Sry inserted on another chromosome develop as males, though they can't produce sperm. More recently...
Until recently, many geneticists thought of the Y chromosome as a vestigial ruin full of decaying genes and doomed to evolutionary oblivion because, unlike all the other chromosomes, it lacks a second copy to serve as a backup when mutation strikes. However, the Y turns out to have other ways of repairing mutations, and recent evidence suggests that the chromosome has been relatively stable over the last 100 million years of evolution. However, most of its genes are involved in a single function, male reproduction.
Researchers have known for more than two decades that a single gene on the Y chromosome, called Sry, is responsible for sex determination. Transgenic mice lacking a Y chromosome but with Sry inserted on another chromosome develop as males, though they can't produce sperm. More recently...