Question

What does the number ‘44’ indicate in this illustration?

Woman (44 + XX)

Man (44 + XY)

Answer 1

Hint: There are autosomes and allosomes in the human beings where autosomes are body chromosomes and the allosomes are sex chromosomes which determine the sex.

Complete answer:
First of all, you should know what chromosomes are. Chromosomes are the long DNA molecules which have all the genetic material of an organism and the human chromosomes can be divided into two types i.e., Autosomes and Allosomes.
Autosomes: Autosomes are the body chromosomes which are numbered roughly in relation to their sizes. These are found in eukaryotic cells that is not a sex chromosome. There are 44 autosomes in humans
Allosome: Allosome are sex chromosomes where Individual having XX sex chromosome is female and individual having XY sex chromosome is male.
Humans have a total 23 pairs of chromosomes which means that there are a total of 46 chromosomes per cell. Out of 23 pairs, there are 22 pairs of autosomes and 1 pair of sex chromosome that means there are 44 autosomes and 2 sex chromosomes.
Most of the eukaryotic organisms reproduce through sexual reproduction which means that each individual has two copies of each chromosome. From the two copies, one copy is inherited from one parent and the other one is inherited from the other parent.
Because of this system, it enhances the genetic diversity against some diseases which then enables the individual to inherit the immune system gene from two different parents. These two copies of genes enable a healthy copy inherited from one parent to cover for a copy of a gene that has been corrupted through harmful mutation.

Thus, the number ‘44’ indicates the number of autosomes which are body chromosomes.

Note: 44 + XX is female as there are 44 body chromosomes i.e., autosome and XX are the sex chromosomes which determine the sex of an individual. 44 + XY is male as there are there are 44 autosomes and XY are the sex chromosomes. Therefore, the number 44 is the number of Autosomes in an individual i.e., body chromosomes.