Secrets of the Y Chromosome

It’s not just what makes males into males. The sex chromosome also influences health in hidden ways, some experts believe, and may even explain why men have shorter life spans.

 Why Y bye-bye? Is the Y chromosome disappearing and will men really go extinct?

I swear I see articles about the disappearing Y chromosome popping up in the news every single year, and each one follows the same sort of logic. The Y chromosome used to be the same size as the X chromosome 166 million years ago. It’s since shrunk to just a third of the size with only about 55 genes compared to the X chromosome’s 900 genes. If we extrapolate from the rate it is shrinking, it’ll be completely gone in less than 5 million years. Oh no! Men will go extinct!

Beyond Just XX or XY: The Complexities of Biological Sex

One of the reasons human biology is so interesting is because it’s so complex; rarely are there neat answers. We’re often taught that when it comes to biological sex, everything fits into two boxes: XY and XX. However, it turns out that, just like the rest of biology, things are a little more complicated than that.

Genetic Maker of Men Is Diminished but Holding Its Ground, Researchers Say

Men, or at least male biologists, have long been alarmed that their tiny Y chromosome, once the same size as its buxom partner, the X, will continue to wither away until it simply vanishes. The male sex would then become extinct, they fear, leaving women to invent some virgin-birth method of reproduction and propagate a sexless species.

Men are slowly losing their Y chromosome, but a new sex gene discovery in spiny rats brings hope for humanity

The imminent – evolutionarily speaking – disappearance of the human Y chromosome has elicited speculation about our future.

Men lose Y chromosomes as they age. It may be harming their hearts

Study in mice is first to directly test health effects of losing male chromosome.

Researchers See New Importance in Y Chromosome

There is new reason to respect the diminutive male Y chromosome. Besides its long-known role of reversing the default state of being female, the Y chromosome includes genes required for the general operation of the genome, according to two new surveys of its evolutionary history. These genes may represent a fundamental difference in how the cells in men’s and women’s bodies read off the information in their genomes.

Scientists Decipher Y Chromosome

Scientists have known for decades that the Y chromosome carries a gene that turns a fetus into a male. But the chromosome was otherwise dismissed as a genetic wasteland. Not true, according to the two papers published in the journal Nature. The Y chromosome contains 78 genes. What's more, those genes are encoded in the chromosome forward and backward, in the form of genetic palindromes millions of DNA letters long.

Scientists Have Fully Sequenced the Y Chromosome. It's the Final Genome Frontier.

Together, more than 100 researchers from across the world have, for the first time, fully sequenced the male sex chromosome—the final mysterious piece of the human genome. “Just a few years ago, half of the human Y chromosome was missing [from the reference]—the challenging, complex satellite areas,” Monika Cechova, co-lead author on the research paper and postdoctoral scholar in biomolecular engineering at the University of California Santa Cruz, said in a news release. “Back then we didn’t even know if it could be sequenced, it was so puzzling. This is really a huge shift in what’s possible.”

Sorry, Guys: Your Y Chromosome May Be Doomed

But don’t worry, men aren’t going anywhere.

The demise of the Y-chromosome?

This finding suggests that there is hope for males after all and that they will not necessarily disappear with the eventual demise of the Y chromosome but that an alternative male-determining factor will evolve. Not that females actually need males to reproduce. Females of an increasing number of species are being found that can produce viable offspring without fertilisation by males – a process called parthenogenesis. But that’s a story for another day.

The Little-Known Curses of the Y Chromosome

Their social and cultural roles play a minor role in the longevity of males.

Why the Y is here to stay

The Y chromosome is finally getting the respect it deserves. Since the early 1900s, we’ve known that the Y chromosome is responsible for making males—XX embryos develop into girls and XY embryos develop into boys—but the Y was thought to do little else. After all, at just one quarter the length of the X chromosome, the Y is relatively puny.

Y chromosome is not doomed to shrivel away to nothing, say researchers

Despite concerns it may be shrinking, male sex chromosome is likely to remain in rude health for many millions of years to come.