Gemmell Neil J, Sin Frank Y T
Department of Zoology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Bioessays. 2002 Mar;24(3):275-9. doi: 10.1002/bies.10062.
The human Y chromosome contains very low levels of nucleotide variation. It has been variously hypothesized that this invariance reflects historic reductions in the human male population, a very recent common ancestry, a slow rate of molecular evolution, an inability to evolve adaptively, or frequent selective sweeps acting on genes borne on the Y chromosome. We propose an alternative theory in which human Y chromosome evolution is driven by mutations in the maternally inherited mitochondrial genome, which impair male fertility and ultimately lead to a reduction in the effective population size (N(e)) and consequently the variability of the Y chromosome.
