Each baby girl starts out with two X chromosomes, but to be healthy she only needs the genes from one. The extra X chromosome gets trussed up and shut down in the earliest stages of development.
Cell & Microbiology
May 13, 2015
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75
Many proteins interact with an RNA molecule called Xist to coat and silence one X chromosome in every female cell. Learning how genes are targeted and silenced may help researchers studying sex-specific diseases.
Biotechnology
Apr 3, 2015
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208
In one of the mysteries of mammalian development, every cell in the early female embryo shuts down one of its two copies of the X chromosome, leaving just one functional. For years, the mechanics behind this X chromosome ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 12, 2021
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328
Autoimmune diseases tend to strike women more than men and having multiple X chromosomes could be the main reason why. While a process called X chromosome inactivation serves to balance out gene dosage between males and females, ...
Biotechnology
Oct 19, 2017
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162
Women are far more likely than men to get autoimmune diseases, when an out-of-whack immune system attacks their own bodies—and new research may finally explain why.
Molecular & Computational biology
Feb 3, 2024
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23
Researchers at Caltech have discovered how an abundant class of RNA genes, called long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs, pronounced link RNAs) can regulate key genes. By studying an important lncRNA, called Xist, the scientists identified ...
Biotechnology
Apr 27, 2015
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76
Nearly every girl and woman on Earth carries two X chromosomes in nearly every one of her cells—but one of them does (mostly) nothing. That's because it's been silenced, keeping most of its DNA locked up and unread like ...
Biotechnology
Jan 8, 2016
1
52
When it comes to genes, it’s definitely possible to have too much of a good thing. Accordingly, mammalian females have a mechanism that randomly inactivates one of the two X sex chromosomes within each somatic cell nucleus, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 12, 2010
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0
(Phys.org)—In a paper published in the Nov. 21 issue of Cell, a team led by Mauro Calabrese, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina in the lab of Terry Magnuson, chair of the department of genetics and ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 27, 2012
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0
Researchers have discovered new insights into how one of the two X-chromosomes is silenced during the development of female human embryos and also in lab-grown stem cells. X-chromosome silencing is essential for proper development ...
Biotechnology
Dec 15, 2016
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