Julie C. answered 04/23/19
College Junior Biology Major
In humans, there are 23 sets of chromosomes. Sex chromosomes (found in the egg of a female or the sperm of a male) are two of those chromosomes that differ between sexes. A female has two X chromosomes (XX) and a male and an X and a Y chromosome (XY). The other 22 chromosomes are also called autosomes (found in every other cell of the human body - somatic cells). Somatic cells under go mitosis, whereas sex cells undergo meiosis. During meiosis, the sex chromosomes begin with a diploid cell, which has two sets of chromosomes, and produces four haploid cells, each having one chromosome.
The function of sex chromosomes is to simply determine the sex of the new cells which form an embryo, and then soon a fetus.