• Question: How many genes does a person have? Also, how does this compare to other animals?? :)

    Asked by jammiedodger to Indi, Jarv, John, Ken, Vicky on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Vicky Young

      Vicky Young answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      I think we have around 25,000 genes…. which seems like a lot but actually its only a tiny part of our DNA. The genes make up around 2% of our DNA and we don’t really know what the rest of the DNA is for yet. There are some small parts help regulate the genes, they tell them when to be expressed and when not to but again this is a tiny portion.

      I don’t know much about animal genes but I don’t think the number of genes corresponds to the size/complexity of the animal which is kind of amazing in itself.

    • Photo: Ken Dutton-Regester

      Ken Dutton-Regester answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Going on from what Vicky said- One of the largest genome around is the marbled lungfish (protopterus aethiopicus)- its genome is 133 billion bases compared to our 3 billion! Also, one of the largest eukaryotic organisms with the most genes is Trichomonas vaginalis T. vaginalis (a parastitc organism responisble for genital infections and is sexually transmitted- gross) with 60,000 genes! Hence, there often is not an association between genome size or number of genes in regards to the size or complexity.

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