Historically, the x chromosome had more genes assigned to it than its physical size would seem to warrant relative to the other chromosomes. Can you suggest another explanation as to why this was the case?

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Biology

Joanna Butler

Today, 04:47

Historically, the x chromosome had more genes assigned to it than its physical size would seem to warrant relative to the other chromosomes. Can you suggest another explanation as to why this was the case?

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Jeremiah Wood · Answer 1

Humans contain 46 chromosome or 23 pairs of chromosomes. Among them 22 pairs are autosomes and one pair contains the sex chromosome. Humans female are XX and human males are XY.

The X chromosome determines the sex of an individual and females one X chromosome is randomly inactivated. The human X chromosome has large number of genes and contains large euchromatic regions that are highly activating gene regions. The X chromosome also contains the conserved regions that are far shorter in Y chromosome. The X chromosome is large in size and has large number of genes.