How many genes does the average person have?

Arpeggionist

Somewhere in the area of 35,000. Humans have each the same number of genes. Nov 23 06, 1:53 AM

tragic_flawed

I read it was 25,000- can you find a site- where it might elucidate this? Nov 23 06, 2:01 AM

UT-7	It seems to me that tragic_flawed is right. See the table : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene Nov 23 06, 3:27 AM

zbeckabee

It could be years before a truly reliable gene count can be assessed. The reason for so much uncertainty is that predictions are derived from different computational methods and gene-finding programs. Some programs detect genes by looking for distinct patterns that define where a gene begins and ends ("ab initio" gene finding). Other programs look for genes by comparing segments of sequence with those of known genes and proteins (comparative gene finding). While ab initio gene finding tends to overestimate gene numbers by counting any segment that looks like a gene, comparative gene finding tends to underestimate since it is limited to recognizing only those genes similar to what scientists have seen before. Defining a gene is problematic because small genes can be difficult to detect, one gene can code for several protein products, some genes code only for RNA, two genes can overlap, and there are many other complications. Even with improved genome analysis, computation alone is simply not enough to generate an accurate gene number. Clearly, gene predictions will have to be verified by labor-intensive work in the laboratory before the scientific community can reach any real consensus. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/genenumber.shtml Nov 23 06, 8:49 AM