The Genome
- The entire set of the genetic material of an organism is known as its genome
- In 2003, scientists completed a 13-year project in which they sequenced the genes that make up the whole human genome
- This project was named the human genome project
- It helped to develop medical understanding and treatment of genetic diseases as well as facilitating the study of human migration patterns
- Each gene within the genome is made up of a small section of DNA that codes for a particular sequence of amino acids
- These sequences of amino acids form different types of proteins
- Alleles are different versions of a gene
- e.g. there are different alleles that code for brown or blue eye colour
- Having 2 alleles of the same type is called homozygous
- Having 2 alleles that are different to one another is called heterozygous
- There are many different types of proteins but some examples of these could be:
- Structural proteins such as collagen found in skin cells
- Enzymes
- Hormones
- Genes control our characteristics as they code for proteins that play important roles in what our cells do
