(A) The de novo inactivation model requires many rounds of inactivation and reactivation: the paternal germline initiates meiotic sex-chromosome inactivation, but the X chromosome is completely ...

X-chromosome inactivation varies across different areas of brains. Here, fluorescent imaging data from a mouse reveal where the father’s X chromosome is most active (white) and least active (blue). A ...

Eighty percent of patients with autoimmune diseases are female. These diseases are one of the top 10 leading causes of death for women under 65, and cases are increasing annually worldwide. There is ...

In female mammals, one of the two X chromosomes becomes genetically silenced to compensate for dosage imbalance of X-linked genes between XX females and XY males. X chromosome inactivation ...

Shaped by thousands of years of evolution, the body’s immune system is a vigilant guardian primed against external infectious threats. Too much vigilance, however, and this guardian of potent cells ...

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have uncovered new clues that add to the growing understanding of how female mammals, including humans, "silence" one X chromosome. Their new study, ...

In most mammals, females have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y chromosome in each of their cells. To avoid a double dose of X-linked genes in females, one of the Xs is silenced early ...

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have solved a mystery that has long puzzled scientists: How do the bodies of female humans and all other mammals decide which of the two X ...

“This work is really important because the X chromosome has largely been excluded from genetic studies in the past,” said Amy Roberts, a molecular epidemiologist at King’s College London who was not ...

The silencing of the one X chromosome in XX cells is mediated by XIST, a long noncoding RNA that is randomly transcribed from only one X early in development. It coats the DNA and shuts down gene ...