Name: Robert
Status: Educator
Grade: 9-12
Location: TX
Country: United States
Date: December 2005
Question:
Recent research shows we have approximately 30,000 genes
in humans. How many traits does this number of genes translate into?
Replies:
Excellent question-we still don't have the answer! There is an article in
Scientific American from April of 2005 called "The Alternative Genome" that
is about alternative gene splicing. It allows part of genes to be cut apart
and reshuffled to get more genetic information out of the existing amount of
DNA. It's kind of like having a deck of 52 cards, but if you draw 5 at a
time, you can get many more hands out of the deck if you shuffle them. It
was indeed a surprise to have only 22,500 genes after the genome was
sequenced. Scientists are still trying to figure out how that works
exactly.
vanhoeck
Dear Robert,
I would say your question is difficult to answer. Many "traits" are
the consequence of more than one gene activity. For any particular
trait it is difficult to predict . As well, a single gene can affect
multiple traits. Furthermore, there might be a consensus on how many
genes we have, but I believe there is not a consensus on how many total
traits we have.
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