Question

Discuss Genome characteristics – explain how genome size and gene density differ in simple organisms, such as prokaryotes, versus more complex organisms, such as ourselves. Discuss why these different genome characteristics exist in simple versus complex organisms.

Answer 1

All eukaryotes posses smaller, usually circular mitochondrial genomes. The only general eukaryotic feature not illustrated by human genome is the presence in plants and other photosynthetic organisms of a third genome located in chloroplasts. Although basic physical structures of all the eukaryotic nuclear genes are similar, one important feature is different in different organisms. This is genome size. The smallest eukaryotic genome being in size of 10mb in length and largest over 100000 Mb. The size range to certain extent coincides with the complexity of the organism. The simplest eukaryote such as fungi having the smallest genome and the highest eukaryotes such as vertebrates and flowering plants having the largest one.