Miscarriages and Polyploidy
Polygamy!
That is a dreadful word to many ladies of marriageable age in parts of the world where it is a common practice. While some men adore it, some abhor it and a fraction are left with little or no choice than to engage in it. The reasons are numerous, one of which is a damn polyploid! Yes, you heard that right, a polyploid induced polygamy!
One of the most important reasons for getting married in Africa is proliferation. By proliferation, I mean the process of giving birth to kids. Yes! some cultures could be that petty. You can begin to imagine what life would be like for a couple that has not been able to produce kid(s), years after marriage. You all don't wanna be in that shoes, especially here in Africa.
You should consider getting another wife since the one you have has refused to give you kids.
As it's typical for mother-in-laws and other family members in an African family, they will push the man into divorcing the woman or, better still, getting another wife. Few of them actually try to know what constitutes the problem.
Is it infertility? If so, is it the man or the woman? If no, then what? miscarriage or stillbirths? Spot on!
Polyploid induced miscarriages or stillbirths are the process of................ Oh, wait! Let me explain what a polyploid is.
Polyploidy is the existence of eukaryotic organism with multiple numbers of a chromosome set. A normal eukaryotic organism is supposed to be diploid (2n). However, as a result of aberration during cell divisions, organisms with a higher number of chromosomes than intended can arise.
Organisms with three sets of chromosomes is referred to as triploid (3n), having four sets is referred to as tetraploidy (4n) and so on. While the condition of having chromosome sets above diploid is termed polyploidy, the organisms having such chromosome sets are called polyploids.
Polyploids are of different types, depending on how the chromosome sets are derived. Autopolyploids have their chromosome sets derived from a single species as a result of the spontaneous doubling of the species genomes.
Examples of this can be found in potatoes, bananas and apples. Allopolyploids on the other hand have their chromosome sets derived from different species. They are therefore also referred to as amphidiploids.
An example for an amphidiploid is found in the Triticale plant with six chromosome sets of which four were derived from wheat and two from rye. Another interesting example can be found in cabbage.[1]
The third type of polyploidy condition is the one that arose as a result of ancient genome duplication but currently behaves like a normal diploid. Paleopolyploidy, as it is called, is difficult to detect because of the similarity to normal ploidy levels. Cases of this type of polyploidy have been recorded in baker's yeast, mustard plants, rice and early ancestors of vertebrates.
Most of the examples of polyploidy conditions I have been giving so far are plant related. Do you wonder if it's pure coincidence (or better put, serendipitous) or deliberate?
Well, the answer is not so difficult. While the polyploidy condition occurs in animals such as goldfish, salmon, salamanders, flatworms, leeches and brine shrimp, it is quite incompatible with life in most mammals with rare instances often resulting in prenatal death.[2]
In humans and most higher animals, polyploidy conditions occur as triploidy or tetraploidy. The extra chromosome set that induces triploidy condition in human can either come from the man or the woman, conditions known as diandry or digyny respectively.
Diandry occurs as a result of an egg being fertilized by two haploid sperm cells while digyny is mostly caused by abnormal meiotic division during oogenesis which results in the formation of gametes with diploid chromosome sets. [3]
The tetraploidy condition is a very rare occurrence in humans but not totally excluded. While tetraploidy has been observed to be responsible for about 1-2 percent of pregnancy miscarriages, triploidy has been attributed to about 15 percent and has been reported to occur in about 2-3 percent of human pregnancies.
A large percentage of triploidy conceptions end up being aborted while the few surviving ones die shortly after birth. However, in an extremely rare case of presence of diploid and haploid cells in a fetus (also known as mixoploidy), such a baby may survive a bit longer after birth compared to their strictly triploid counterparts. [4]
Now, do you wish to have the statistics of polyploidy induced polygamy? Yea, me too!
Not to get it all mixed up, polyploidy is quite different from aneuploidy. While the former has to do with complete haploid or diploid chromosome set, the later is about one extra chromosome; too few (n-1), or too many (n+1).[9]
Everything has its usefulness.
Polyploidy conditions might not be that desirable in most animals, including humans. This is partly because polyploid animals often appear sterile in nature and are reduced to reproducing asexually by parthenogenesis and are mostly deleterious in humans, causing miscarriages and stillbirths. However, the same is not the case in most plants.
Polyploidy conditions in plants are very desirable and have often been exploited for commercial purposes in agriculture. It is often artificially induced in plants through exposure to radiation, injury, in-vitro regeneration, and chemical treatments such as colchicine, 8-hydroxyquinoline, acetophenone, nitrous oxide, granosan, chloroform, chloral hydrate, some narcotics and alkaloids, veratin sulfate, acenaphthene, sulphanilamide, ethyl mercuric chloride and hexachlorocyclohexane. [6]
Polyploid crops appear healthier with bigger leaves, stems, and roots. The majority of common crops found nowadays are actually polyploids. It has been one of the major path of evolution in the plant kingdom, specifically playing a large role in angiosperm's speciation.[7], [8]
Polyploidy conditions represent the existence of eukaryotic organisms with more than one chromosome sets. It could be triploidy, tetraploidy, pentaploidy and so on. Polyploids are organisms having more than the usual diploid number of chromosomes. While some animals are polyploids, the condition is mostly deleterious in humans and is responsible for a large number of pregnancy miscarriages and stillbirths. Polyploidy induced abortions and stillbirths most often force men in some cultures into marrying another wife and end being a polygamous man, worse still, it ends up destroying marriages.
However, the condition is not totally undesirable as it has often been exploited in commercial agriculture to produce healthier, bigger and commercially rewarding crop species. Polyploidy has actually played a large role in speciation and evolution of angiosperms.
[1]new world encyclopedia: polyploidy
[2]medicine.jrank.org: Polyploidy - Polyploidy In Animals, Polyploidy In Plants, Genetic Analysis
[3]national library of medicine: Phenotype of triploid embryos
[4]google books: Pregnancy and Birth After Assisted Reproductive Technologies
By Michael Ludwig
[5]science direct: Learn more about Polyploid
[6]biology discussion: Artificial Induction of Polyploidy
[7]as.wvu.edu: Polyploidy in plants
[8]britannica:Polyploidy
[9]khan academy: Aneuploidy & chromosomal rearrangements
guy, this polygamy of a thing is a serious issue but the thing is that i see it as unfair to the female folks. this is my first time of hearing this polyploid of a word. thanks, it is now in my dictionary. thanks so much for sharing
different people have different definitions of fairness. I would not want to go into who or what is fair when it comes to polygamy. I just like relating every stuff to science! Thanks for reading.