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The list of organisms by chromosome count describes ploidy or numbers of chromosomes in the cells of various plants, animals, protists, and other living organisms.This number, along with the visual appearance of the chromosome, is known as the karyotype, [1] [2] [3] and can be found by looking at the chromosomes through a microscope.
The basic number of chromosomes in the somatic cells of an individual or a species is called the somatic number and is designated 2n. In the germ-line (the sex cells) the chromosome number is n (humans: n = 23). [4] [5] p28 Thus, in humans 2n = 46. So, in normal diploid organisms, autosomal chromosomes are present in two copies.
Most spiders have a variation of the XO system in which males have two different X chromosomes (X 1 X 2 O), while females have a pair of X 1 chromosomes and a pair of X 2 chromosomes (X 1 X 1 X 2 X 2). [1] Some spiders have more complex systems involving as many as 13 different X chromosomes. [1] Some Drosophila species have XO males. [10]
Eukaryotic genomes are composed of one or more linear DNA chromosomes. The number of chromosomes varies widely from Jack jumper ants and an asexual nemotode, [28] which each have only one pair, to a fern species that has 720 pairs. [29] It is surprising the amount of DNA that eukaryotic genomes contain compared to other genomes.
The first step of the Human Genome Project took place when Tjio and Levan, in 1956, reported the accurate diploid number of human chromosomes as 2n = 46. [ 6 ] During this phase, data on the karyotypes of hundreds of mammalian species (including information on diploid numbers, relative length and morphology of chromosomes, presence of B ...
Polyploidy occurs in some tissues of animals that are otherwise diploid, such as human muscle tissues. [45] This is known as endopolyploidy. Species whose cells do not have nuclei, that is, prokaryotes, may be polyploid, as seen in the large bacterium Epulopiscium fishelsoni. [46] Hence ploidy is defined with respect to a cell.
Human diploid cells have 46 chromosomes (the somatic number, 2n) and human haploid gametes (egg and sperm) have 23 chromosomes (n). Retroviruses that contain two copies of their RNA genome in each viral particle are also said to be diploid.
The number of chromosomes in the cell where trisomy occurs is represented as, for example, 2n+1 if one chromosome shows trisomy, 2n+1+1 if two show trisomy, etc. [2] "Full trisomy", also called "primary trisomy", [2] means that an entire extra chromosome has been copied. "Partial trisomy" means that there is an extra copy of part of a chromosome.