Ask a Geneticist response

For homework, SunnyD gave us a 3 links to 3 websites. Two of them are very interesting questions that have to do with chromosomes and the other link has to do with more information about chromosomes by the genome news network. There were two questions asked in two links and the two of them are:

Question 1: I realize that humans have 46 chromosomes and chimps 48, but do we (homo sapiens) have more genes or fewer genes than the chimp?

Question 2: Why is the [human] genome split into separate chromosomes rather than being one long strand and what determines[ed] which genes went to which chromosome?

The first one was answered by Flo Pauli, from Stanford University.

And the second one was answered by Dr. Bronwyn MacInnis, from Stanford University.

For the first one i learned that the reason why that humans have less chromosomes than a chimp is because human chromosomes are really made up of two chip chromosomes. About 5 million years ago,the two species started to drift apart in evolution. In that time, their genome changed. Some sections were lost, gained, and copied. Each of them has very similar proteins but the amount in the brain, liver, heart makes humans and chimps different.

For the second one, i learned that the reason why the chromosomes are not a big long strand of genes because some of the simplest forms, like bacteria keep all of their genes in one long strand however, humans divide their DNA in to different chromosomes. We need more DNA to increase genetic diversity to mix other DNA sequences to create a combination. To know which genes are on a chromosome is that a virus like DNA moved our genes around and fused them into different chromosomes. The Y chromosome contains the genes for manliness while the X chromosome contains genes for femaleness. Gene duplication is a way that genes are copied into DNA.

And the third one is on how many chromosomes each organism has and what makes chromosomes different from one another. Mostly the closer a species is then they almost same amount of chromosomes they will have. Different chromosomes have different genes and the amount of genes differs from shape and size.

For more info on the first one, click here

On the second one, click here

On the last one, click here