The human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens.

It is made up of 23 chromosome pairs with a total of about 3 billion DNA base pairs.

There are 24 distinct human chromosomes: 22 autosomal chromosomes, plus the sex-determining X and Y chromosomes.

Chromosomes 1-22 are numbered roughly in order of decreasing size.

Somatic cells usually have one copy of chromosomes 1-22 from each parent, plus an X chromosome from the mother, and either an X or Y chromosome from the father, for a total of 46.

There are an estimated 20,000-25,000 human protein-coding genes.

The estimate of the number of human genes has been repeatedly revised down from initial predictions of 100,000 or more as genome sequence quality and gene finding methods have improved, and could continue to drop further.

For more information about the topic Human genome, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

Somatic cell — A somatic cell is generally taken to mean any cell forming the body of an organism. Somatic cells, by definition, are not germline cells. In mammals, ...  > read more

Chromosome — The DNA which carries genetic information in cells is normally packaged in the form of one or more large macromolecules called chromosomes. A ...  > read more

Mitosis — In biology, mitosis is the process by which a cell separates its duplicated genome into two identical halves. It is generally followed immediately by ...  > read more

Human Genome Project — The Human Genome Project (HGP) endeavoured to map the human genome down to the nucleotide (or base pair) level and to identify all the genes present ...  > read more

Editor's Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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