ScienceAugust 8, 2026
autosomes
AW-tuh-sohmz
Definition
Any chromosome that is not a sex chromosome, containing the majority of an organism's genetic information.
Etymology
Derived from the Greek 'autos' meaning 'self' and 'soma' meaning 'body', the term was coined in the early 20th century to distinguish non-sex-determining chromosomes from allosomes.
In the news
In the brown rat, researchers discovered that genes originally found on sex chromosomes have moved to these regular chromosomes, changing how the rat's sex chromosomes function during reproduction.
Telomere-to-telomere brown rat genome could sharpen disease research models
Read the full article ↗medicalxpress.com