Barr body

Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Financial, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Related to Barr body: Pseudoautosomal region

Barr body

(bär)

The condensed, inactive X chromosome found in the nuclei of somatic cells of most female mammals. Also called sex chromatin.

[After Murray Llewellyn Barr (1908-1995), Canadian anatomist.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Barr′ bod`y

(bɑr)
n.

an inactive Xchromosome present in the nuclear membrane of female somatic cells, used for verifying the sex of an individual.

[1960–65; after Murray Latin. Barr (born 1908), Canadian physician]

Mentioned in ?

sex chromatin

References in periodicals archive ?

Compared with a Barr body, which appears as a drumstick-shaped appendage of a nuclear lobe, (4) a Howell-Jolly body-like inclusion appears as a completely detached and densely basophilic inclusion in the cytoplasm of neutrophils.

Howell-Jolly Body-Like Inclusions in Neutrophils of Patients With Myelodysplastic Syndrome: A Novel Correlation

each entrant to submit to a chromosome test known as the Barr body test.

CHANGING SEX/GENDER ROLES AND SPORT

From a sample of "normal appearing males," the Barr body test labeled one out of seven hundred as female.

When is a girl not a girl?

X chromatin and intra-nuclear structure is also known as Barr body as it was first discovered by Barr et al.