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X Chromosome May Leave a Mark On Male Fertility
sciencehabit writes "Behind every great man, the saying goes, there's a great woman. And behind every sperm, there may be an X chromosome gene. In humans, the Y chromosome makes men, men, or so researchers have thought: It contains genes that are responsible for sex determination, male development, and male fertility. But now a team has discovered that X—'the female chromosome'—could also play a significant role in maleness. It contains scores of genes that are active only in tissue destined to become sperm. The finding shakes up our ideas about how sex chromosomes influence gender and also suggests that at least some parts of the X chromosome are playing an unexpectedly dynamic role in evolution."
This is what happens when you have 3.5 Billion years of hacks. Legacy code, no overall architecture and absolute chaos.
Let's start over and redesign humans from the ground up.
And where's the documentation?
The y chromosome doesn't code many genes at all, and this has been known for a long time. It's main function is turning specific genes off. Anatomy of all sorts, including gender characteristics is coded across all 24 chromosomes. The y just suppresses the female parts.
If I learn something over a decade ago in a high school class, it shouldn't be "science news."
The Y chromosome is a li'l runt and they think it won't even be there anymore in a hunnert thousand years or so.
Behind every great man, the saying goes, there's a great woman
Behing every failed man, there is a failed woman.
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No, it's just bad science journalism. The X chromosome is, for the most part, just another part of the genome; it contains all sorts of random junk, like blood clotting factors and parts of the receptors in our eyes that let us see colour. Any disease you've ever heard of that's "X-linked" or more common in men than women is either affected or effected, directly or indirectly, by the X chromosome. It is of no significance or note whatsoever that it contains stuff that's only activated in the male body.
If you want something weird and sex-linked to rant insanely about, however, there's always the mystery of digit ratio.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
The y just suppresses the female parts.
So the suppression of females by the Y Chromosome is natural, and this is what evolution has intended and achieved, and the general oppression of the women in the society is just a natural extension of what is going on in cellular level. So all the male chauvinistic pigs can now breath a sigh of relief, "we can't help it. we are born this way".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The neo-feminists will not stand for it! This has to be another male-dominated science propaganda finding and must be a lie!
Marilyn Manjaw sides with you.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Actually, it does both: Turn genes on, and turn genes off.
Take for instance, "TDF Males".
(TDF == Testis Determining Factor, and is encoded by the SRY gene on the Y chromosome)
This single gene is sometimes translocated to the X chromosome in a rare mishap of cellular meiosis during gamete production.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome
Since this is just a single gene out of the many on the Y chromosome, resulting phenotypical male offspring are infertile, and the "androgenization" of the offspring is incomplete, often showing signs of feminine features.
The Y chromosome contains more than just SRY, and does quite a bit more. Specifically, it contains genes for sperm specific cellular features, like the AZF1 gene,
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZF1 ), without which you can't produce sperm cells.
Given the limited real-estate of the Y chromosome, and it's structural fragility (See the "shrinking Y chromosome" theory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome#Shrinking_theory ), it makes LOADS of evolutionary sense to offload as much vital genetic data off of it as possible, and onto more stably recombining chromosomes as is possible.
The real thing here, is that "most of being male, is present in the female genotype". Most, but not all.
Otherwise there would be very little genetic diversity between father and
son regarding fertility, and we know that to be false.
You misunderestimated the significance of the finding. The fe(e) in female chromosomes responsible for controlling the ability of 'certain tissues' in both the male and female, presumably until the each has met some prerequisite for reproduction, like 'getting in touch with your 'inner feminine side' (as an alternative to aggression?). Maybe this will explain the success of the 'sneaky' less-than-dominant males who may not rule the harem but pass their genes on down the line none-the-less. Could it be that this is the key to unlocking the code that allows men to employ cooperative, empathetic strategies to achieve success thus explaining the emergence of game theory from the example of men cooperating for the affection of women in bars?
The human species has:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,X, and Y.
How many do you count?
What about fully functional XX men, except that one gene that allows sperm to swim, but otherwise normal?
Many Y genes have gotten trans-scripted onto the X over time and the Y may just disappear leaving us with everyone being XX.
X men don't have to be gay.... they have to be Super! Thanks for asking!
The Y chromosome contains more than just SRY, and does quite a bit more.
SRSLY?
Women, X-X. Men, X-Y. Chuck Norris, Y-Y.
There is no chick in Chuck Norris.
It just means men are females that have been suppressed. We're the victims here!
The Y chromosome is a li'l runt and they think it won't even be there anymore in a hunnert thousand years or so.
I don't think there's anyone who takes this seriously any more. There were some people suggesting that if genes are lost at a linear rate off the Y chromosome, it should disappear in another 10 million years. However, chimpanzees and humans show no difference in the number of genes on the Y chromosome since we diverged 6-7 million years ago, and we've both only lost one gene since we diverged from the rhesus macaque 25 mya. Given that sequencing of the platypus genome puts the common mammalian Y chromosome at a max of age of 166 mya, this suggests the linear model is just wrong.
The Wikipedia has good article on this from which I drew my numbers, if you're interested in more.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Can't live with em, can't live without em.
Some of those feminists make even stupider arguments. It's perfectly alright for women to cooperatively solve problems together, but add a man to the equation, and the solution becomes "sexist".
If a gang of women need to pass through a door that is difficult to open, the strongest woman present will probably pull the door open, and the least strong women in the gang will duck through as quickly as possible. If a man and a feminist need to pass through that door, if the man opens and holds the door for the feminist, he is sexist. We have basically the same solution to the same problem, but the sexist feminist refuses to acknowledge that the solution is the CORRECT solution.
MOST WOMEN will just accept this trivial act of consideration with a nod of gratitude, or a word of thanks, and go on about their business. SOME FEMINISTS will want to kick the man in the balls for being sexist.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
No feminist would ever make a stupid argument like this...
...And that sounds a lot like No True Scotsman.
Sadly, I've personally heard actual feminists make equally-stupid arguments. One particular instance I recall was discrediting a physical-fitness study because it separated male and female participants. The study's conclusion had nothing to do with gender differences, but segregating the samples eliminated a variable. That didn't matter to the opposing extremist, though. She argued that since the male and female results were separated, each group was therefore subject to different biases, and the whole study should be rejected because it was "clearly" just a piece of propaganda to further the myth that men are physically superior to women.
Of course, in the actual study, there were a good many outliers that overlapped. Speaking of outliers, there are also extremists on all sides of an argument, even the ones with supposed moral high ground. Such extremists should be ignored as an anomaly, and the real science can go on uninterrupted.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Yeah, and SOME black women are welfare queens. What's your point?
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Superheroes can't be gay!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKSgf4NX_4
The Y chromosome has degenerated because it is only present in males. Therefore it does not benefit from crossover. Therefore a bad mutation on it is passed down to all generations of males from that point on. This makes it a very poor place to put useful genes, and it is gradually becoming nothing more than a device to determine gender.
Look, I didn't name it that ok?
Want a truly silly name? Look up "sonic hedgehog gene".
For realz.
Like welfare queens, femnazis ruin it for all of us.
That the basic body plan is female to start with. I mean why else would men have nipples too?
And look at differences in the reproductive organs of men and women. Testes and Ovaries - just small deviations create each, and of course location.
Sounds to me like you might be a racist. Black women? Welfare queens? What is YOUR point?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
This is nothing new. The Y-Chromosome is too small to actually code for anything, and no one ever thought that it could contain more than a handful of genes. The Y is just a set of GOTOs pointing to the X.
It's significant from a health and evolutionary perspective. X inactivation in women makes expression of these genes mosaic which can prevent disease as well as cause some interesting immune responses. A gene can be beneficial in a pair but fatal solo which creates an interesting evolutionary tradeoff. If a woman can't have sons, is that a significant evolutionary disadvantage?
Oppression of women is as natural and greed and cruelty, and just as avoidable.
I wish I could vote up on this account. This is such a fascinating topic.
That I, like you, should have used sarcasm tags?
-- Using the preview button since 2005
And behind every great woman, there's a man. Staring at her ass.
Heh - maybe you're right there. Point taken.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You're okay, for a cracker.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
>> domestic violence
SIGNIFICANTLY more males than females are assaulted and killed in society every day.
Perhaps not by their partner, but overall in society.
>> education access
Girls have been outperforming boys in school for many years now.
Also for many years, many more girls have been going into higher education than boys.
>> maternal mortality
Don't even get me started on government health spending.
Women live longer than men, but significantly more is spent on female-specific health issues.
No, what most (not all, but most) feminists do is perpetuate the notion of victimhood amongst females, and most women swallow this hook, line and sinker.
But if you do the research -- I mean actually look at the numbers -- you'll see that males cop it far worse than females.
Actually not, but he did write this pun filled song - to the tune of "Home on the Range,"
Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y-chromosome changed to X
And when it is grown
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.
More if you search for it.
If you look at all the chromosomes though, there are a lot of "runts". The size of the chromosome doesn't matter as long as they can hold a few genes that are vital.
Could it be that this is the key to unlocking the code that allows men to employ cooperative, empathetic strategies to achieve success thus explaining the emergence of game theory from the example of men cooperating for the affection of women in bars?
No. It's about sperm production.
With 5% of the human genome residing on this chromosome, it isn't a surprise.
No feminist would ever make a stupid argument like this...
...And that sounds a lot like No True Scotsman.
So No True Scotsman burns Straw Man?
Where do Lizard and Spock fit in?
See Klinefelter's syndrome for why that seems unlikely to happen.
A perfect sig.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
To be honest, I did check EntrezGene first to see whether there really is a SRSLY gene. Apparently not; all I got was SRSY, a little-boy-mouse gene.
It's not a trait that lasts very long; every successive daughter has a 50% chance of passing it on afterwards, after all, so at most you'd expect such a mutation to only be around for three or four generations.
However, such diseases are probably the reason why women make up 51% of the population. In the stereotypical portrayal of hunter-gather societies, certainly it is desirable to have slightly more women than men; the traditional division of responsibilities leaves the women with more consistent work. Contrariwise it would seem that an agrarian society would benefit more from a surplus of men to work fields, but there are relatively few adaptations in our genomes that are agriculture-oriented. (Cavities, for example, are a symptom of eating grains.)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
X linked diseases are more serious to men because men can't be carriers. Men only get one X chrome and if it stinks we are stuck with it. It really isn't that shocking that a simplistic models used in genetics is proven wrong. That has been the common fact for the past decade.
There's nothing wrong here; it's just a simple misunderstanding by the journalist. We've known about X-linked for as long we've known about sex chromosomes, which inherently implies that the X chromosome has responsibilities beyond determining sex.
Believe it or not, however, there are actually advantages to the Y chromosome being so minimal. Men are nature's beta testers: sometimes mutations in the X chromosome have significant benefits, and as these traits aren't balanced out by a second allele, they become more pronounced and hence are easier to detect during sexual and natural selection. This is (probably) why men display a greater variance in height, strength, and analytical skill. Similarly, by always suffering from a disease, and hence by not getting laid, men protect the rest of the tribe from the disorders they end up with. (Admittedly not great when you're actually in the middle of things, but sexual dimorphism and reproduction are both full of cruelties.)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Our awareness of environmental triggering of epigenetic phenomena is actually quite older. Agriculture is full of examples of Lamarckian traits, such as resistance to drought or cold; plants switch on these attributes over successive generations as a form of memory, no DNA mutations required; it's all chromatin re-modelling. You're certainly right that it took us a while to accept that nearly everything in the Central Dogma has at least one counterexample.
A little note: obesity is actually an immune disorder and has nothing to do with epigenetics. You can read a pretty good explanation here. I think the real cause of the epidemic is unsanitary factory farming practices.
Also, the term "mRNA" is not generally used to refer to RNA molecules that hang around and perform other functions, even though they're all transcripts. The "messenger" moniker implies it's destined to be turned into a protein at a ribosome.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
There's no need to guess. It's been demonstrated that a build-up of bad bacteria is responsible for difficult-to-conotrol weight gain in a significant portion of the US population. It's almost certain that this is only a problem now because of changing food conditions. One specific type of bacteria emit a toxin that causes the intestine to take up excess nutrients; it's that simple. Normally the human immune system prevents this bacterium from colonizing the gut. While a bad circadian cycle (i.e. no sunlight) can contribute to such issues, they're negligible next to Bacteroidetes infections. There's even a cure, consisting of a very specific crash diet that replaces all intestinal flora. Antibiotics have, unfortunately, made the situation worse.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Matches my experience.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There are rational feminists out there, true. And they may well be concerned with the issues you quote. But many, many neo-feminists are not aiming at equality at all, they are aiming at female supremacy, and to them anything even remotely "male" is repulsive. That goes so far that there are now neo-feminist professors in Germany that want to discredit the scientific method as a "male" construction that is invalid. (In truth they just do not get it and want to continue to spout their ridiculous BS despite having no proof for anything of it.)
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.