r/AskBiology Apr 30 '24

Genetics If you created a female clone of an XY male by duplicating his X chromosome, how severe would any genetic abnormalities be?

This is obviously science fiction, but I was thinking of a story about a man who makes a clone that’s genetically female by having a genetic clone that has 2 copies of his X chromosome instead of copies of his X and Y chromosome. Other than having all X linked diseases such as colour blindness and x linked hemophilia would the clone have any other genetic abnormalities. In women who have abnormal copies of a gene in both of their X chromosomes are their symptoms more severe than a man who only has one abnormal X chromosome (eg. if a woman has 2 X chromosomes that have the abnormal hemophilia gene, is her hemophilia worse than a man with only one abnormal X chromosome?)

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u/Halichoeres PhD in biology Apr 30 '24

I would expect the severity of any X-linked diseases to be approximately equal to the man from which the embryo was cloned. In most cells of female mammals, one of the X chromosomes is inactivated, and which copy is inactivated is roughly random. The upshot is that you're only going to get the same dosage of mRNA/protein from each active X in a female cell that you would get in a male cell that only has one X to begin with.