Why is the human genome like a parts list?

Answer 1

The human genome is a collection of long strands of molecule called DNA.

DNA is a long polymer, where different individual monomers (single units) are called base-pairs.

Certains segments of these strands (a few hundred to a few thousand base pairs) are called "genes".

A molecule called RNA polymerase localizes to the front of the gene, moves along the base pairs, "reads" the specific base-pair sequence, and creates a copy of the particular base pairs it reads (this process is called transcription).

The copy the RNA polymerase is an example of one "part". The part is usually modified to become something biologically useful (for example, it might go through another process called "translation" to become a protein).

The "Genome" refers to all of the genetic material (so all of the DNA, so all of the genes) in an organism.

Any genome (including the human genome) is a parts list because all biologically meaningful "parts" to the organism are encoded by a specific sequence of base pairs.

So.... the human genome is really a list of the specific instructions to make all of the parts.

James Watson, who along with Francis Crick was credited with the discovery of the DNA double helix and proposal of the "fundamental dogma of molecular Biology", said

"DNA makes RNA, RNA makes proteins, and proteins make us."