Abstract

Individuals in the population differ from each other on the number, size, location and intensity of fluorescence of Q-heterochromatin regions (Q-HRs) of chromosomes. It is known that there is Y chromosome in a karyotype of males, which contains the largest block of Q-heterochromatin in human genome, and for this reason it is taken for granted that in total there is on average twice more Q-HRs in the genome of male than of female. However, the question on the existence of differences between the sexes on the quantitative content of chromosomal Q-HRs in the population still remains open. The fact is that the Y chromosome differs in its broad interindividual and interpopulation variability on the size of Q-heterochromatin material. A comparative analysis of the amount of chromosomal Q-HRs in the genome of male and female of different racial, ethnic and age groups showed that sex differences at the population level is much more complicated than heretofore assumed.

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