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> What Cinnamon and his team determined revolves around the common denominator of all male chickens, the Z chromosome from the mother hen. This would also be a
by a_shovel 4y ago
> What Cinnamon and his team determined revolves around the common denominator of all male chickens, the Z chromosome from the mother hen.
This would also be a common denominator with the female chickens. Birds, unlike mammals, use the ZW sex-chromosome system, where males have the symmetric ZZ chromosomes and females have a pair of asymmetric ZW chromosomes.
I'd like to know more about this, such as a general description of what kind of change they made, as this article is really light on technical details.
- alangibson 4y agoIIRC, this is why birds can undergo parthenogenesis in rare cases.
- Dylan16807 4y agoI don't know about "why". It seems like it would be slightly easier with the same chromosomes. And it happens with both systems. If you specifically mean parthenogenesis to a male egg, then yes you'd generally need something like ZW.
- projektfu 4y agoThe maternal Z is not a common denominator of female chickens. Female chickens have a Z chromosome from the sperm and males have one each from the sperm and the egg. For a laying hen to have a female offspring, it has to pass on a W. Therefore, if you make the mother hen's ovary produce eggs with a lethal z, but a non-lethal W, normal sperm will produce viable ZW females and Zz males with a lethal mutation.