Recently, media has reported about Czech scientists surveying the degradation of the Y-chromosome. Some experts believe it may completely disappear.
Vladimir Trifonov, PhD, Biology, Head of the comparative genomics laboratory at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Sputnik about the chromosome's extinction, and whether men should be worried.
Sputnik: What is the Y-chromosome's function?
Vladimir Trifonov: Here we are talking about the Y-chromosome of mammals as it occurs in a large number of animals. Its main function is sex determination, because the presence of this chromosome influences the development of male gender characteristics. In addition, the Y-chromosome most often carries genes important for spermatogenesis, as well as carrying color genes for some other animal species, such as guppies.
Sputnik: What could be the reason for the Y-chromosome's degradation?
Vladimir Trifonov: The Y-chromosome is inevitably degrading because it exchanges little information with the X-chromosome. Usually, other chromosomes in our genome exchange parts with their homologues, thus stopping their degradation. The Y-chromosome doesn't replace its parts with the X-chromosome - that's its evolutionary feature. Once that exchange, which takes place in the process of meiosis, stops, these chromosomes will inevitably degenerate. Therefore, this absolutely regular model of evolution of elements is not recombined.
Once they stop recombining, they start degenerating. However, the comparison of the human Y-chromosome with that of a chimpanzee has shown that the rate of this degeneration slows down over time. The initial degeneration process was rather fast, but it has now slowed down and
the Y-chromosome is not expected to vanish for hundreds of millions of years.
Comment: Snake-oil alert: Encryption doesn't prevent mass-snooping