There are many functions of the DNA but it primarily acts as instructions for body cells to make proteins and in determining the phenotype (such as hair colour and eye colour).
DNA make up genes and each gene specifically carry out a single body function.
Fun facts:
- There are about 60 trillion cells in the human body
- 46 chromosomes in total (23 pairs)
- There are also approximately 100,000 genes
- The length of a DNA strand in a single cell, if it is uncoiled and removed from the nucleus, is about 2.17m
- Therefore the total distance that DNA can cover, if taken out of every single cell, will be approximately 120 trillion metres! Which is about travelling 500 times from the earth to the sun!
This picture shoes the human genes categorized by the functions of the transcribed proteins. It shows both the number of encoding genes and percentage of all genes.
