HUMAN RACE TO GO INTO EXTINCTION IN A FEW MILLION YEARS UNLESS...

Did you know that the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years leading to extinction of the human race, according to a new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in Australia?

The sex of human and other mammal babies is decided by a male-determining gene on the Y chromosome. In humans, as in other mammals, females have two X chromosomes and males have a single X and a puny little chromosome called Y. The names have nothing to do with their shape; the X stood for 'unknown'.

The X contains about 900 genes that do all sorts of jobs unrelated to sex. But the Y contains few genes (about 55) and a lot of non-coding DNA – simple repetitive DNA that doesn't seem to do anything. But the Y chromosome packs a punch because it contains an all-important gene that kick-starts male development in the embryo.

At about 12 weeks after conception, this master gene switches on others that regulate the development of a testis. The embryonic testis makes male hormones (testosterone and its derivatives), which ensures the baby develops as a boy. This master sex gene was identified as SRY (sex region on the Y) in 1990. It works by triggering a genetic pathway starting with a gene called SOX9 which is key for male determination in all vertebrates, although it does not lie on sex chromosomes.

Most mammals have an X and Y chromosome similar to ours; an X with lots of genes, and a Y with SRY plus a few others. This system comes with problems because of the unequal dosage of X genes in males and females. But how did such a weird system evolve? The surprising finding is that Australia's platypus, a class of rodents, has completely different sex chromosomes, more like those of birds.

In platypus, the XY pair is just an ordinary chromosome, with two equal members. This suggests the mammal X and Y were an ordinary pair of chromosomes not that long ago. In turn, this must mean the Y chromosome has lost 900–55 active genes over the 166 million years that humans and platypus have been evolving separately. That's a loss of about five genes per million years. At this rate, the last 55 genes will be gone in 11 million years.

The good news is two branches of rodents have already lost their Y chromosome and have lived to tell the tale. A new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) shows how the spiny rat has evolved a new male-determining gene.

The imminent, evolutionarily speaking, disappearance of the human Y chromosome has elicited speculation about the future of humans. However, some lizards and snakes are female-only species and can make eggs out of their own genes via what's known as parthenogenesis. But this can't happen in humans or other mammals because we have at least 30 crucial "imprinted" genes that work only if they come from the father via sperm. To reproduce, we need sperm and we need men, meaning that the end of the Y chromosome could herald the extinction of the human race.

The new finding supports an alternative possibility – that humans can evolve a new sex determining gene. However, evolution of a new sex determining gene comes with risks. What if more than one new system evolves in different parts of the world? A "war" of the sex genes could lead to the separation of new species, which is exactly what has happened with mole voles and spiny rats.

So, if someone visited Earth in 11 million years, they might find no humans – or several different human species, kept apart by their different sex determination systems.

Image Credit: Scientific American

Source:

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-y-chromosome-is-slowly-vanishing-a-new-sex-gene-could-be-the-future-of-men

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