How much DNA does a person receive from each parent?

Answer 1

It is a 50-50 process. You get 50% of DNA from each parent. Certain things may show more though. Like, you may get your eye and hair color from your mother, but get your skin pigment and facial features from your father. It's a give and take process. But, usually the genes of your mother are more obvious to your appearance and you father's genes may be more subtle. This is because you spend 9 months inside of your mother not you father. But your father depends on which gender you are. Your father is the won that made you a boy or a girl. But, of course he had no control over this is just depended on which sperm gets to the egg first. If it is a female sperm you will be a girl, and if it's a male sperm you will be a boy.

To be specific whether a gene will be expressed is dependant on whether that gene is recessive or dominant. A recessive gene is one that will only be shown in the offspring if another more dominant gene isnt present.

An example often quoted is that of blue and brown eyes. Brown is more dominant than blue so if you get one brown gene from one parent and a blue from another than the offspring will have brown. In order for the offspring to have blue eyes both genes must be blue. In truth the reality is more complex than that but its a good model. These dominant and recessive characteristics can be modelled using something called a punnett square.

Although this is correct for celular DNA it doesn't tell the whole story. Humans are made up of much more than only the 23 pairs in the cell nuclei. A large portion of the cell uses its own DNA such as the mitrochodrial DNA, the best way to look at it is as if each cell has self sustaining bacteria-ettes within it that hold their own DNA. On top of this a very large amount of what makes you you is your friendly bacteria (9 out of 10 cells in the body approximately) and these too have their own DNA and are responsible for the characteristics of your smell, digestion and many other things.

All of these extras can only come from the mother as the father only delivers the packet of 23 half chromosomes.

So the real truth of how much you get from each parent is really not 50/50 but maybe as much as 80% of what makes you you comes from the mother.

This is of course still a simplification of the whole truth.

Answer 2

They get a one DNA which is consist of geneticaly both the parents..