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sex chromosome
(redirected from Sex chromosomes)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.

sex chromosome

Either of a pair of chromosomes that determine whether an individual is male or female. The sex chromosomes of mammals are designated X and Y; in humans, they constitute one pair of the total 23 pairs of chromosomes. Individuals possessing two X chromosomes (XX) are female; those having one X and one Y chromosome (XY) are male. The X chromosome is larger and carries more genetic information than the Y. Traits controlled only by genes found on the X chromosome (e.g., hemophilia, red-green colour blindness) are said to be sex-linked. Sex-linked traits occur far more frequently in males than in females, since a male inheriting an allele for a recessive (see recessiveness) trait on the X chromosome lacks a corresponding allele on the Y chromosome that might counteract its effects. Several disorders are associated with an abnormal number of sex chromosomes, including Turner syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome.


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The doubling of sex chromosomes that occurs in this kind of asexual reproduction creates males among reptiles.
The diploid chromosome number of Z infestans is 22, including 10 pairs of autosomes and 1 pair of sex chromosomes (XY in males, XX in females) (8).
In addition, the second and the third main aneuploidies found in our study included both sex chromosomes (XY-18 and XY-18,18).
 
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