Human Genome Project (HGP) The project was coordinated by the United States Department of Energy and the National Institute of Health. The method involved the two major approaches- first identifying all the genes that express as RNA called Express sequence tags (EST). The second is the sequencing of the all set of genomes that contained the all the coding and non-coding sequence called sequence Annotation. Goals of HGP
- To identify all the genes (20,000 to 25,000) in human DNA.
- To determine the sequence of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA.
- To store this information in the database.
- To improve tools for data analysis.
- To transfer related information to other sectors.
- To address the legal, ethical and social issues that may arise due to the project.
Salient Features of the Human Genome
- The human genome is made up of 3164.7 million nucleotide bases.
- On an average, a gene consists of 3000 bases, but size may vary.
- Human beings have about 30,000 genes.
- For over 50 percent of the discovered genes, the functions are still unclear.
- Less than 2 percent of the genome contributes for protein synthesis.
- Human genome consists of a large portion of repeated sequences.
- Chromosome 1 with 2968 genes has the most number of genes. The Y chromosome with 231 genes has the least number of genes.