Cia, Chris Francis T.

BSE Science 2-A

Reflection No. 2

“The Y chromosome is disappearing — so what will happen to men?”

By Darren Griffin and Peter Ellis, University of Kent

The Y chromosome is often used as a representation of masculinity, however

based on this article that I've found it is now more and more obvious that it is far from
durable and strong. “If the same rate of degeneration continues, the Y chromosome has
just 4.6 million years left before it disappears completely. This may sound like a long
time, but it isn't when you consider that life has existed on Earth for 3.5 billion years.”
The topic of the article that I chose is about what will happen to the male when the Y
chromosome disappears, I picked this article since it is related from our previous
reporting which is the “evolution of Y chromosomes” and I also wanted to expound my
knowledge about it. So the article first give a brief overview about the Y chromosome
such as why the it is shrinking and how it lose its ability to completely do a
recombination to the X chromosome, I already know some of it since I’ve research
about for our reporting but it still fascinating to learn new things about the Y
chromosome. I found out through this article that there are two faction of scientist who
give their own idea about what will happen on male species when the Y chromosome
disappear, the first faction of scientist says that “Y chromosomes are inevitably doomed
— even if they sometimes hold on a bit longer than expected.” My view on this is it
somehow scary to think that in the far future there won’t be any male due to the lack of
Y chromosome and their ability to pair and do recombination with other chromosome
which can lead to fertility problem and somehow shift the formation of new species that
won’t need the Y chromosome. However, even though the first faction of scientist give
their unsettling take on the demise of men, the other faction of scientist have a
somehow positive view on this, “Even if the Y chromosome in humans does disappear,
it does not necessarily mean that males themselves are on their way out and even in
the species that have actually lost their Y chromosomes completely, males and females
are both still necessary for reproduction.” The other faction of scientist thinks that the
male still have a chance even if we lose the Y chromosome since they think that the
SRY "master switch" gene that determines genetic maleness can just moved to a
different chromosome, meaning that some of the species can produce males without
needing a Y chromosome. But also think that the new sex-determining chromosome or
the one that SRY moves on to will then start the process of degeneration all over again
due to the same lack of recombination that doomed their previous Y chromosome. My
view on this second scientist take is that it is more reassuring to know that we won’t be
having any big problem even if our Y chromosome disappear since they give a
thoroughly explanation on how the SRY gene can just inhabit different chromosome.

So in conclusion I found out that losing the Y chromosome doesn't mean losing
the male instead, the disappearance of the Y chromosome would likely mean that
another chromosome would just take over the job as the main determinant of sex. I also
did a few more research regarding to the effect of it specifically to us humans, and I
learned that while the Y chromosome is essential for healthy human reproduction, many
of the genes it contains are not required if you used assisted reproductive procedures,
this indicates that the Y chromosome's gene function may soon be able to be replaced
by genetic engineering, enabling infertile men or same-sex female couples to
reproduce, so we shouldn’t be alarmed when we are talking about the disappearance of
our sex genes.

Link: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-19/y-chromosome-disappearing-what-will-
happen-to-men/9342994