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Asked by barrychuckle1 to Carla, Madgie, Nick, Vicky, Werner on 9 Nov 2013.
Question: How are plant genes different to human genes?
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Werner Muller answered on 9 Nov 2013:
Plants (and some bacteria) have sets of genes to build cellulose (and humans don’t).vThere are also lots of genes in humans that are not present in plants. Plants can have gene structures similar to human gene structures.
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Carla Turner answered on 9 Nov 2013:
Plants genes are really quite similar to human genes, but there are a few differences.
Humans don’t have chloroplasts (where the chlorophyll is) or we may be green! Theses chloroplasts have their own genes so that’s one of the main differences between plants and humans.
Plants are also more likely to have several of the same chromosomes, you may know humans mainly have two of the same chromosomes some plants have over 4 sets of the same chromosome!
Although there are differences in what the genes code for and how many there are the structure and chemistry is pretty similar
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Marlene Lorgen answered on 11 Nov 2013:
As Werner and Carla have said, plant and human genes are pretty similar, but some genes may exist in one group and not the other. This is even true within more closely related groups. For example, the family which Atlantic salmon belongs, the Salmonids, duplicated the size of their genome and as a result, have multiple copies of genes which we see in other fish. Some of these multiple copies have evolved to be different from the originals, generating new genes with new functions!
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Nick Groves-Kirkby answered on 11 Nov 2013:
The first thing I thought of is that some plants have massive amounts of DNA — up to 50 times as much as humans!
Some plants also have really complex gene arrangements. For example, bread wheat, which seems like a very simple plant has a really complex genome that scientists haven’t been able to fully read yet.
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