• A chromosome concerned in determining the sex of an organism, typically one of two kinds.

  性染色体

  Example sentencesExamples

  • That sex chromosome is so new evolutionarily that it doesn't have the stripped-down style of full-fledged Y chromosomes.
  • The Y chromosome is the male-specific sex chromosome that is passed from father to son in the same way that surnames are passed from father to son.
  • Conditions in which there is an extra sex chromosome are fundamentally different from those such as Down's syndrome in which affected individuals have recognisable characteristics that can be explained by laboratory findings.
  • It is genetic, but not linked to a sex chromosome like hemophilia, so either parent can pass porphyria on to any child.
  • The abnormal behavior of an unidentified sex chromosome has also been reported in D. subobscura.

In humans and other mammals females have two similar sex chromosomes (XX) while males have dissimilar ones (XY). In birds and some other animals, females have dissimilar sex chromosomes (ZW) and males similar ones (WW). Some other organisms have a sex chromosome present only in one sex