Cardiac chromosomes
X- and Y-chromosomes have been linked to human heart disease
Valeria Filimonova, ferra.ru
According to the author of the article The sex of your cells matters when it comes to heart disease, published in the journal The Conversation, a biomedical scientist from the University of California, San Diego, Brian Aguado, X chromosomes have one interesting function.
So, if we consider tricolor cats, then their females almost always have red and black spots, since the gene that is responsible for the color of the coat is located on the X chromosome. When mating black and red cats, their kittens usually inherit one X chromosome from each parent and have a mixture of black and red fur. Males of such cats usually have completely black or red hair.
For the proper functioning of the body, one of the X chromosomes is "turned off" in each of the cells of the body. This happens because a cat or a person needs only one X chromosome. At the same time, it happens that some genes in the "off" X chromosome remain active. There may be up to one third of such genes in humans, and they affect health and the development of diseases.
One of the diseases associated with such genes is aortic valve stenosis. This is a condition in which the part of the heart designed to control blood flow to the rest of the body narrows and becomes rigid. As a result, the heart begins to work more actively, which can lead to heart failure. At the same time, there are no effective drugs for the treatment of stenosis yet.
According to earlier studies, aortic valves in people with XX and XY chromosomes harden differently. The former usually have fibrosis (increased scarring), the latter have increased calcium deposition. But why is this happening?
According to the author of the article and her colleagues, the reason lies in the peculiarities of genes in the "disabled" X chromosomes. It depends on them the degree of rigidity of the valve in the heart during stenosis. To conduct the study, specialists created bioengineered models of valve tissue using hydrogels.
It turned out that with a decrease in the activity of genes that avoided disconnection in the X chromosomes, scarring of XX chromosome cells decreased. It also turned out that heart tissue cells with XY chromosomes, rather than with XX chromosomes, were more sensitive to drugs aimed at genes that contribute to scarring.
But drugs that affect genes in "disabled" X chromosomes are more effective when used for cells with XX chromosomes.
It should also be noted that women have a set of XX chromosomes, men - XY.
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