Abstract
The human genome contains 3 billion base pairs of DNA, sufficient to encode 100,000 to 300,000 genes. Since the number of genes that make up a human being is not known, this estimate is based upon a national average size for a mammalian gene. If the average gene is 30,000 bases long, there will be about 100,000 genes. Many of these genes will not be simple structures. More and more genes appear to have alternate ways of being read from the DNA, so that several different protein products can be made from a single gene. The total complexity of the human being then is about 100,000 to 500,000 processes.
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© 1988 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Gilbert, W. (1988). Human Genome Sequencing. In: Woodhead, A.D., Barnhart, B.J., Vivirito, K. (eds) Biotechnology and the Human Genome. Basic Life Sciences, vol 46. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-5547-2_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-5547-2_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-5547-2
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