Life Sciences Commons^™

Evolution Of The Y-Chromosome In Primates, Audrey Marsh

Western Libraries Undergraduate Research Award

The primate X and Y chromosomes are believed to have diverged from a set of ancestral autosomes that over time accumulated enough genetic differences to make them mostly non- homologous. More specifically, since its appearance approximately 166 million years ago the Y- chromosomes has been plagued by a series of mutational deletions that has shortened its length dramatically (Warren et al., 2008). The evolution of the Y-chromosome and its degradation therefore has radically changed the active genes that were once present in common ancestors from those living today (Charlesworth, 2000). However, its massive erosion over time has become somewhat of …