• Question: Do all organisms have the same number of genes?

    Asked by Aamina to Sophie on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Sophie Robinson

      Sophie Robinson answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      No, humans have approximately 25 000 protein-coding genes whereas a small fruit fly has 13000. The number of genes an organism has tends to increase with the complexity of the organism but this rule isn’t always true. For example a rice plant has 51000 genes – twice as many as humans despite not being as complex as human beings! Notice I use the term ‘protein-coding’ though. There are also many genes that do not code for proteins but that doesn’t mean they are not useful. Humans have a lot more of these non-protein coding genes than rice which explains why they are more complex.

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