Question

Joel is comparing two slides showing chromosomes in a sperm cell and a skin cell of a dog. He finds that the sperm cell has 39 chromosomes. How many chromosomes can he expect in the skin cell

Answer 1

Answer:

The total number of chromosome in a skin cell is equal to 78

Explanation:

The sperm is usually haploid i.e it will contains only half of the total chromosome number.

Therefore , if the total number of chromosomes is "n" , then the number of chromosome in the sex cell will be "n/2"

Thus, 39 chromosome is just the half of total chromosome number.

Now a skin cell is a diploid cell and it will contain all the chromosome i.e "n"

As we know

$\frac{n}{2} = 39\\n = 39 * 2\\n = 78$

Hence, the total number of chromosome in a skin cell is equal to 78