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From: srp@ethz.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: question
Message-ID: <48@ethz.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Mar-87 04:12:10 EST
Article-I.D.: ethz.48
Posted: Sun Mar 29 04:12:10 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Mar-87 03:26:22 EST
References: <11189@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA>
Reply-To: srp@ethz.UUCP (Scott Presnell)
Organization: Chem. Dept., Swiss Federal Inst. of Tech. (ETH-Zurich)
Lines: 29

In article <11189@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> rburns@teknowledge-vaxc.UUCP writes:

>I was wondering roughly how many 'bytes' of information are contained
>within human chromosomes?

This assumes one base-pair is one bit.

Number of basepairs in the human genome = 2,900,000,000
					= 2.9 giga-_bits_
					= 362.5 mega-bytes

(Assuming 1000 base-pairs per gene	= 2.9 mega-genes)

Doesn't seem like much does it? A vast majority of these 'bytes' aren't even
part of a gene or control region. 

These numbers come from the combination of my calculator and the book...
"DNA Replication" by Arthur Kornberg" W.H. Freeman and Co.(1980) pg 20.

-- 
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Scott Presnell  Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zentrum)
		Department of Organic Chemistry
		Universitaetsstrasse 16
		CH-8092 Zurich Switzerland.

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