what is a gene?
DESCRIPTION
What is a gene?. A gene is a particular s equence (a string) of nucleotides on a particular site of a chromosome. It is made up of combinations of A, T, C, and G. These unique combinations code for a particular amino acid, much as letters join together to form words. . - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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A gene is a particular sequence (a string) of nucleotides on a particular site of a chromosome. It is made up of combinations of A, T, C, and G. These unique combinations code for a particular amino acid, much as letters join together to form words.
What is a gene?
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A chromosome is nature’s great packaging experiment – it contains tightly coiled DNA around special proteins. The DNA of a human being’s 23 chromosomes, when uncoiled, is 2 meters long!!
Back to chromosomes and genes
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A genome is made up of all of the DNA in an organism’s chromosomes—it is all of its genetic information.
Genome
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An analogy to the human genome stored on DNA is that of instructions stored in a library.
The library would contain 46 books (chromosomes).
The books range in size from 400 to 3340 pages (genes), which is 48 to 250 million letters (A,C,G,T) per book.
Genome=library
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So, the library contains over six billion letters total;
The library fits into a cell nucleus the size of a pinpoint;
A copy of the library (all 46 books) is contained in almost every cell of our body.
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The Human Genome Project A 13-year project (1990-2003) that
discovered all estimated 20,000 to 25,000 human genes.
The project also discovered the complete sequence of all 3 billion DNA bases (A,T,C,G).
All the information in stored in databases.
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The Human Genome Project Why bother? Just a few reasons….
Improved disease diagnosis Determining genetic predisposition to
disease Developing gene therapy Designing custom drugs
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