The second largest human chromosome, 2 consists of 237 million bases encoding over 1,400 genes and making up approximately 8% of the human genome. A number of genetic diseases are linked to genes on chromosome 2.  Interestingly, chromosome 2 contains what appears to be a vestigial second centromere and vestigial telomeres which gives credence to the hypothesis that human chromosome 2 is the result of an ancient fusion of two ancestral chromosomes seen in modern form today in apes.