INTERESTING FINDING

 Life without the Y chromosome

In most of today's mammals, what determines whether an individual will be male or female is the presence or absence of the Y chromosome. However, the latter is in the process of degeneration in the human genome, and could disappear in a few millions of years.

This degeneration is due to the fact that, unlike what happens with the rest of the chromosomes, the Y presents a single copy in the individuals that carry it. Thus, this chromosome does not undergo genetic recombination, thus, this chromosome does not undergo genetic recombination.

A team of biologists headed by Asato Kuroiwa, from the University of Hokkaido, has just revealed this by revealing how two species of rodents that had lost the Y chromosome survived this circumstance while maintaining sexual differentiation.Most of the genes on the Y chromosome would have been relocated to other chromosomes, with the exception of SRY, whose trace could not be found.