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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 ]
All normal diploid individuals have some small fraction of cells that display polyploidy. 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.
Aneuploidy is the presence of an abnormal number of chromosomes in a cell, for example a human somatic cell having 45 or 47 chromosomes instead of the usual 46. [1] [2] It does not include a difference of one or more complete sets of chromosomes. A cell with any number of complete chromosome sets is called a euploid cell. [1]
Aneuploidy is often harmful and in mammals regularly leads to spontaneous abortions (miscarriages). Some aneuploid individuals are viable, for example trisomy 21 in humans, which leads to Down syndrome. Aneuploidy often alters gene dosage in ways that are detrimental to the organism; therefore, it is unlikely to spread through populations.
[5] [6] Aneuploidy can be full, involving a whole chromosome missing or added, or partial, where only part of a chromosome is missing or added. [5] Aneuploidy can occur with sex chromosomes or autosomes. [citation needed] Rather than having monosomy, or only one copy, the majority of aneuploid people have trisomy, or three copies of one chromosome.
Karyotype of a human with Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). Trisomies can occur with any chromosome, but often result in miscarriage rather than live birth.For example, Trisomy 16 is most common in human pregnancies, occurring in more than 1%, but the only surviving embryos are those having some normal cells in addition to the trisomic cells (mosaic trisomy 16). [3]
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Polyploidy and aneuploidy are common phenomena in cancer cells. [6] Given that oncogenesis and endoreduplication likely involve subversion of common cell cycle regulatory mechanisms, a thorough understanding of endoreduplication may provide important insights for cancer biology.