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Name: Kris Gruca
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Question:
If a chromosome has two Y's in it what would the child be?


Replies:
If your question is what would a child be if the fertilized ovum has 2 y chromosomes in it.....

The only way this could happen would be if the maternal parent contributed no sex chromosome and the ovum was fertilized by either 2 sperm cells (providing 2 y chromosomes) or a single mal-formed sperm cell possessing 2 y chromosomes (each should only possess a single sex chromosome.) You can see that in any of the above events, natural abortion would likely quickly occur...

another consideration is that those genes normally present for fetal development on the x chromosome would be lacking in such a case . Normally each individual has at least one x chromosome. Scientists are currently mapping genes on the chromosomes and it will not be long before we have a clear picture of what is provided by the entire x or y chromosome (apart from the fairly well-understood sex characteristics) You can see that a fetus lacking any of the x chromosome's genetic material would fail in development and probably be quickly spontaneously aborted.

I am not sure of the exact statistics, but I recall hearing that a fairly large percentage of conceptions fail and are naturally aborted due to genetic errors (either errors in the production of sperm or egg cells, or in the normal fertilization process.) The likelihood of natural spontaneous abortion would depend on how essential for development the particular genetic material is. My suspicion is that a theoretical case like your question first is very unlikely, and second, would not provide enough genetic material to develop very far before the organism would 'run out of blueprints' for development.

Hope this info. helps!

Ric
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