Phys.org – genome

News tagged with genome New software tools streamline DNA sequence design-and-build process

Synthetic DNA allows scientists to expand the breadth and depth of their genomic research. In this study researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) have developed a suite of build-optimization ...

A team of Hokkaido University researchers has discovered a hitherto-unknown mechanism that detains transposable elements or "mobile genes" - which can move and insert into new positions in plant genomes.

EPFL scientists have carried out a genomic and evolutionary study of a large and enigmatic family of human proteins, to demonstrate that it is responsible for harnessing the millions of transposable elements in the human ...

A new study by G. William Arends Professor of Microbiology at the University of Illinois Bill Metcalf with postdoctoral Fellow Dipti Nayak has documented the use of CRISPR-Cas9 mediated genome editing in the third domain ...

Meteorologists strive to predict the weather. Network scientists develop complex algorithms to predict the spread of disease. Might it also be possible to predict the emergence of scientific discoveries? If the answer is ...

Dwindling populations created a "mutational meltdown" in the genomes of the last wooly mammoths, which had survived on an isolated island until a few thousand years ago. Rebekah Rogers and Montgomery Slatkin of the University ...

In an age of booming biotechnology, it might be easy to forget how much we still rely on the bounty of the natural world. Some microbes make us sick, some keep us healthy, while others continue to give us some of our best ...

The National Academies of Science and Medicine (NASEM) released a report on Feb. 14 exploring the implications of new technologies that can alter the genome of living organisms, including humans.

Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new tool to identify interactions between RNA and DNA molecules. The tool, called MARGI (Mapping RNA Genome Interactions), is the first technology that's ...

Gene transfers are particularly common in the antibiotic-resistance genes of Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria.

In classical genetics, the genome of a diploid organism including eukarya refers to a full set of chromosomes or genes in a gamete; thereby, a regular somatic cell contains two full sets of genomes. In haploid organisms, including bacteria, archaea, viruses, and mitochondria, a cell contains only a single set of the genome, usually in a single circular or contiguous linear DNA (or RNA for retroviruses). In modern molecular biology the genome of an organism is its hereditary information encoded in DNA (or, for retroviruses, RNA).

The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA. The term was adapted in 1920 by Hans Winkler, Professor of Botany at the University of Hamburg, Germany. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests the name to be a portmanteau of the words gene and chromosome; however, many related -ome words already existed, such as biome and rhizome, forming a vocabulary into which genome fits systematically.

More precisely, the genome of an organism is a complete genetic sequence on one set of chromosomes; for example, one of the two sets that a diploid individual carries in every somatic cell. The term genome can be applied specifically to mean that stored on a complete set of nuclear DNA (i.e., the "nuclear genome") but can also be applied to that stored within organelles that contain their own DNA, as with the mitochondrial genome or the chloroplast genome. Additionally, the genome can comprise nonchromosomal genetic elements such as viruses, plasmids, and transposable elements. When people say that the genome of a sexually reproducing species has been "sequenced", typically they are referring to a determination of the sequences of one set of autosomes and one of each type of sex chromosome, which together represent both of the possible sexes. Even in species that exist in only one sex, what is described as "a genome sequence" may be a composite read from the chromosomes of various individuals. In general use, the phrase "genetic makeup" is sometimes used conversationally to mean the genome of a particular individual or organism. The study of the global properties of genomes of related organisms is usually referred to as genomics, which distinguishes it from genetics which generally studies the properties of single genes or groups of genes.

Both the number of base pairs and the number of genes vary widely from one species to another, and there is little connection between the two (an observation known as the C-value paradox). At present, the highest known number of genes is around 60,000, for the protozoan causing trichomoniasis (see List of sequenced eukaryotic genomes), almost three times as many as in the human genome.

An analogy to the human genome stored on DNA is that of instructions stored in a book:

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Phys.org - genome