About how many protein-coding genes does a human being have?
Try it yourself first
🫀 Human body · genes
Enter an estimate in genes.
Notepad
End a line with = to calculate it.
Show the answer and the method
Answer
About 20,000 genes
Before the genome was sequenced, many scientists bet on 100,000 or more. A grain of rice and a water flea both have more genes than we do.
How to estimate it
The genome has 3 billion base pairs, but only about 1.5 percent of it codes for protein: 45 million base pairs. A typical protein is a chain of about 500 amino acids, and each amino acid needs 3 letters, so one gene uses about 1,500 coding letters. 45,000,000 / 1,500 = 30,000. The actual count is about 20,000 genes.
Source: US National Human Genome Research Institute; GENCODE
More questions: Human body
- The fastest signals in the human nervous system run along thick, insulated nerve fibres. What speed do they reach, in metres per second?
- What does an average adult human brain weigh, in grams?
- Estimate the number of atoms that make up a 70 kg human body.
- Count every bone in a typical adult human skeleton. What number do you reach?
- About how many neurons are packed into one adult human brain?