Multiple choice

Consider the following facts about genome composition:

  1. Comparing genome compositions helps scientists to understand the evolutionary history of a given genome.
  2. Most of the genome (almost 85-90%) in prokaryotes is repetitive DNA.
  3. Mammals and plant genomes are made up of repetitive DNA.

Which of the above are true?

  1. 1 and 2

  2. 2 and 3

  3. 1 and 3

  4. All of the above

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Genome composition is used to describe the make up of contents of a haploid genome, which should include genome size, proportions of non-repetitive DNA and repetitive DNA in details. By comparing the genome compositions between genomes, scientists can better understand the evolutionary history of a given genome. In prokaryotes, most of the genome (85-90%) is non-repetitive DNA, which means coding DNA mainly forms it, while non-coding regions only take a small part. On the contrary, eukaryotes have the feature of exon-intron organization of protein coding genes; the variation of repetitive DNA content in eukaryotes is also extremely high. When referring to mammals and plants, the major part of genome is composed by repetitive DNA.