Gamete

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Gamete

A gamete (from Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
?aµ?t??; translated gamete = wife, gametes = husband) is a cell

Cell (biology)

The cell is the structural and functional unit of all known Life organisms. It is the smallest unit of an organism that is classified as living, and is often called the building bricks of life....
that fuses with another gamete during fertilization (conception) in organism

Organism

In biology, an organism is any life thing . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimulus , reproduction, growth and developmental biology, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole....
s that reproduce sexually

Sexual reproduction

Sexual reproduction is characterized by processes that pass a Genetic recombination of Genetics material to offspring, resulting in Genetic diversity....
. In species which produce two morphologically distinct types of gametes, and in which each individual produces only one type, a female

Female

Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces mobile ovum . The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male....
is any individual which produces the larger type of gamete—called an ovum

Ovum

An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization....
(or egg)—and a male

Malé

Mal? , population 104,403 , is the Capital , the largest city in terms of population, and the name of an island in the Maldives. It is located at the southern edge of North Male' Atoll Kaafu Atoll....
produces the smaller tadpole-like type—called a sperm

Sperm

The term sperm is derived from the Greek word sperma and refers to the male reproductive Cell . In the types of sexual reproduction known as anisogamy and oogamy, there is a marked difference in the size of the gametes with the smaller one being termed the "male" or sperm cell....
.

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Encyclopedia

A gamete (from Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Cell (biology)

Organism

Sexual reproduction

Female

Ovum

Malé

Sperm

Anisogamy

Anisogamy refers to a form of sexual reproduction involving gametes of different sizes. The smaller gamete is considered to be male whereas the larger gamete is regarded as female ....
or heterogamy

Heterogamy

Heterogamy has a number of biological definitions:*In reproductive biology, heterogamy is the alternation of differently organized generations, applied to the alternation between parthenogenesis and a sexual reproduction generation....
, the condition wherein females and males produce gametes of different sizes (this is the case in humans, the human ovum is approximately 20 times larger than the human sperm cell). In contrast, isogamy

Isogamy

Isogamy refers to a form of sexual reproduction involving gametes of similar morphology, differing only in allele expression in one or more Mating-type region....
is the state of gametes from both sexes being the same size and shape, and given arbitrary designators for mating type

Mating type

Mating types occur in eukaryotes that undergo sexual reproduction via isogamy. Since the gametes of different mating types look alike, they are often referred to by numbers, letters, or simply "+" and "-" instead of "male" and "female." Mating can only take place between different mating types....
. The name gamete was introduced by the Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
n biologist Gregor Mendel

Gregor Mendel

Gregor Johann Mendel was an Augustinians priest and scientist, and is often called the father of genetics for his study of the biological inheritance of certain Trait s in pea plants....
. Gametes carry half the genetic information of an individual, one chromosome

Chromosome

X chromosome

The X chromosome is one of the two sex determination system chromosomes in many animal species, including mammals . It is a part of the XY sex-determination system and X0 sex-determination system....
(of the X and Y chromosomes) whereas a sperm can carry either an X or a Y, hence, it has been suggested that males have the control of the sex

Sex

In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetics traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into male and female types ....
of any resulting zygote

Zygote

A zygote is a cell that is the result of fertilization. That is, two ploidy cells—usually an ovum from a female and a sperm cell from a male—merge into a single ploidy cell called the zygote ....
as the genotype

Genotype

The genotype is the trait we can't see. The genotype is the Genetics constitution of a cell, an organism, or an individual usually with reference to a specific character under consideration....
of the sex-determining chromosomes of a male must be XY and a female XX. In other words, due to the presence of the Y chromosome exclusively in the sperm, it is that gamete alone which can determine that an offspring will be a male.

Gametogenesis

The production of gametes is termed gametogenesis, during which phase gametocyte

Gametocyte

A gametocyte is a eukaryotic germ cell that divides by mitosis into other gametocytes or by meiosis into gametids during gametogenesis. Male gametocytes are called spermatocytes, and female gametocytes are called oocytes....
s divide by meiosis

Meiosis

In biology or life science, meiosis is a process of reductional division in which the number of chromosomes per cell is halved. In animals, meiosis always results in the formation of gametes, while in other organisms it can give rise to spores....
into gametes. Meiosis reduces the number of sets of chromosomes from two to one (i.e., produces haploid gametes from diploid gametocytes). Organs that produce gametes are called gonad

Gonad

The gonad is the organ that makes gametes. The gonads in males are the testes and the gonads in females are the ovaries. The product, gametes, are haploid germ cells....
s in animals, and archegonia

Archegonium

An archegonium , from the ancient Greek ???? and ????? , is a multicellular structure or organ of the gametophyte phase of certain plants producing and containing the ovum or female gamete....
or antheridia

Antheridium

An antheridium is a haploid structure or organ producing and containing male gametes . It is present in the gametophyte phase of lower plants like mosses and ferns, and also in the primitive vascular Psilotophyta....
in plants.

Gamete cycle

A gamete of two generation ultimately creates a gamete in the next generation, but still keeping the same quantity of genetic information.

Gametes are haploid cells; that is, they contain half(n) of a complete set of chromosome

Chromosome

A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein that is found in Cell . A chromosome is a single piece of DNA that contains many genes, regulatory sequence and other genetic sequence....
s (the actual number varies from species to species). When two gametes fuse (in animals typically involving a sperm and an egg), they form a zygote
Zygote

A zygote is a cell that is the result of fertilization. That is, two ploidy cells—usually an ovum from a female and a sperm cell from a male—merge into a single ploidy cell called the zygote ....
—a cell that has a complete set of chromosomes(2n) and therefore is diploid. The zygote receives one set of chromosomes from each of the two gametes through the fusion of the two gamete nuclei

Cell nucleus

In cell biology, the nucleus , also sometimes referred to as the "control center", is a membrane-enclosed organelle found in all eukaryote cell ....
. After multiple cell division

Cell division

Cell division is a process by which a cell , called the parent cell, divides into two or more cells, called daughter cells. Cell division is usually a small segment of a larger cell cycle....
s and cellular differentiation

Cellular differentiation

In developmental biology, cellular differentiation is the process by which a less specialized cell becomes a more specialized cell type. Differentiation occurs numerous times during the development of a multicellular organism as the organism changes from a single zygote to a complex system of Tissue and cell types....
, a zygote develops

Developmental biology

Developmental biology is the study of the process by which organisms grow and develop. Modern developmental biology studies the genetic control of cell growth, cellular differentiation and "morphogenesis," which is the process that gives rise to biological tissues, organ s and anatomy....
, first into an embryo

Embryo

An embryo is a multicellular organism ploidy eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, Egg , or germination....
, and ultimately into a mature individual capable of producing gametes.

Sperm-egg distinction

Eggs are relatively few, large, and immobile, while sperm are many, small, and motile. The size difference is mostly (but not entirely) accounted for by the very large cytoplasm

Cytoplasm

The cytoplasm is the part of a Cell that is enclosed within the plasma membrane. In eukaryote cells the cytoplasm contains organelles, such as mitochondrion, that are filled with liquid kept separate from the rest of the cytoplasm by biological membranes....
of the egg. Eggs awaiting zygote formation may be anchored either to something in the environment or by an organ that contains them; sperm may rely solely on their own motility or may be relayed into place by an organ such as pollen

Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of Gametophyte , which produce the male gametes of spermatophyta. A hard coat covering the pollen grain protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower....
to reach the place of zygote formation. Typically many more sperm than eggs are created and wasted, in the sense of never fusing with a partner gamete.

Dissimilarity

In contrast to a gamete, the diploid somatic cell

Somatic cell

Somatic cells are any cell s forming the body of an organism, as opposed to germline cells. In mammals, germline cells are the spermatozoa and ova which fuse during fertilization to produce a cell called a zygote, from which the entire mammalian embryo develops....
s of an individual contain one copy of the chromosome set from the sperm and one copy of the chromosome set from the egg; that is, the cells of the offspring have genes expressing characteristics of both the father and the mother. A gamete's chromosomes are not exact duplicates of either of the sets of chromosomes carried in the somatic cells of the individual that produced the gametes. They can be hybrids produced through crossover

Chromosomal crossover

Chromosomal crossover is the process by which two chromosomes pair up and exchange sections of their DNA. This often occurs during prophase 1 of meiosis in a process called synapsis....
(a form of genetic recombination

Genetic recombination

Genetic recombination is the process by which a strand of genetic material is broken and then joined to a different DNA molecule. In eukaryotes recombination commonly occurs during meiosis as chromosomal crossover between paired chromosomes....
) of chromosomes, which takes place in meiosis. This hybridization has a random element, and the chromosomes tend to be a little different in every gamete that an individual produces. This recombination and the fact that the two chromosome sets ultimately come from either a grandmother or a grandfather on each parental side account for the genetic

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
dissimilarity of siblings

Family

Family denotes a group of people affiliated by a common ancestry, affinity or co-residence. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by "blood," some cultural anthropology have argued that one must understand the idea of "blood" metaphorically, and that many societies understand 'family' through other concepts r...
.