I have completely dummy question.
I have 23 pairs of chromosomes in the cells 23 single coming from my mother and 23 single from my father. So how my cell choose which chromosome, mother's or father's to use to synthesize peptides?
I have completely dummy question.
I have 23 pairs of chromosomes in the cells 23 single coming from my mother and 23 single from my father. So how my cell choose which chromosome, mother's or father's to use to synthesize peptides?
The majority of normal autosomal genes have biallelic expression, i.e. the alleles on both chromosomes are used to make protein. This is why mutations in a gene which cause non-function of the product can be silent if the mutation is heterozygous (only found on one of the alleles), because the effect is masked by the second, fully-functional, copy of the gene. In other cases heterozygous mutations may cause slight phenotypes, because half of the protein produced is non-functional.
A small minority of autosomal genes have monoallelic expression, through a process called imprinting. This is where one of the alleles of the gene is modified by methylation of the DNA, or of histones (the proteins which are used to package and condense DNA). This imprinting switches off the expression of that allele, so that protein is only made from the other allele of the gene. Usually in this case, which allele is switched off depends on which parent it came from.
Things are slightly more complicated in the case of genes on X or Y chromosomes. Men have only a single X chromosome, and a single Y chromosome. This means that any mutation on X or Y which causes a phenotype will always present itself, because there is no second copy to mask it.
In the case of women, who have two X chromosomes and no Y, something similar to imprinting happens, where one of the X chromosomes is chosen to be inactivated. This X-inactivation process occurs very early in development, and the inactive X chromosome is kept that way for the rest of that person's life. In this case, however, the choice of which chromosome is inactivated is not dependent on which parent the chromosome came from, and is entirely random.
Some further reading:
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/monoallelic-expression-8813275
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/genetic-imprinting-and-x-inactivation-1066