One Thing Males And Females Have In Common: Up-Regulating X-Linked Genes

Experiments have recently supported a longstanding hypothesis that explains how males can survive with only one copy of the X chromosome, a hotly debated topic in science.Women have two X chromosomes, while men have one X and one Y. The lack of a 'back up' copy of the X chromosome in males contributes to many disorders that have long been observed to occur more often in males, such as hemophilia, Duchene muscular dystrophy and certain types of color blindness. Having only one copy of X and two copies of every other chromosome also creates a more fundamental problem; with any other chromosome, the gene number imbalance resulting from having only one copy would be lethal. How can males survive with only one X? read more

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