• Question: Why do humans have so few genes?

    Asked by thescriv100 to Angela, Gopal, Hannah, Becky, Vince on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Rebecca Cook

      Rebecca Cook answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      This is a great question.

      I think human do have a good number of genes (around 20,000) but there is an organism that has 3 times that amount, though rather surprisingly this organism is a type of protozoa, a single cellular organism. Humans are multicellular organisms and this means they have to replicate DNA many times for all there cells and this requires energy so there is a benefit for limiting the amount of DNA (and genes) per cell if you are made up of lots of cells.

Comments

  • Photo: Michelle

    Michelle commented on :

    There are 20,000 genes in the human genome, but a really interesting question is why only about 1.5% of those genes actually make proteins that function in the human body. The rest is non-coding or ‘junk’ DNA and scientists are currently trying to find out why there should be so much DNA that doesn’t appear to do anything.