Skip to navigation | Skip to content  X chromosome helps explain
complex females  X chromosome  The "extraordinary" X chromosome
(Image: Indigo Instruments)  The newly-cracked genetic code of
the female X chromosome may help explain why women are so
different from men, say an international team of researchers.
The team, headed by UK researcher Dr Mark Ross, of the Wellcome
Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, reports their findings in
this week's issue of the journal Nature.  The X chromosome
contains 1,100 genes, or about 5% of the human genome.  Ross and
team's findings show that females are far more variable than
previously thought and, when it comes to genes, more complex
than men.  "The X chromosome is definitely the most
extraordinary in the human genome in terms of its inheritance
pattern, its unique biology ... and in terms of its association
with human disease," says Ross.  Chromosomes, which are found in
the nucleus of every cell, contain genes that determine the
characteristics of an individual. W