are genes segments of dna?
or
are dna segments of genes?
2006-11-26 00:56:50 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
In a sense, BOTH are true. Genes are segments of longer DNA strands. But that means that the gene itself is made of DNA. So subsegments of that gene are themselves made up of DNA. Remember that DNA is a molecular chain, so it is not a contradiction that DNA can be very short or very long.
What may be confusing you is that a gene is a piece of information, and DNA is the molecule that *carries* that information. So a very long piece of DNA can have many segments that each contains a gene ... but a gene can consist of many shorter segments of DNA.
It's like the difference between the *text* of a book (the genes), and the pages holding English words (the DNA). A gene is like a chapter of a book (so it's a segment of a long block of English pages), but each chapter itself can contain many shorter segments of English pages (the sections).
Or you can think of DNA as the tape in a cassette (hopefully you remember what a cassette tape is), and the genes as the music on that tape. A gene is like a song (a segment) of that tape (DNA). But a song (a gene) can consist of smaller segments of tape (DNA), like the guitar solo on the third song, or the chorus of the sixth song (which is repeated many times in the song).
So just as it's not exactly correct to say that the music is a "segment" of the tape, it's the information *encoded* on that segment of tape ... it's also not completely correct that a gene is a "segment" of DNA, but rather the information *encoded* on that segment of DNA.
Boy, I hope that helps.
2006-11-26 01:02:08 · answer #1 · answered by secretsauce 7 · 3⤊ 5⤋
A gene can be defined as a region of DNA that controls a hereditary characteristic. You could say that they are segments of DNA which control the production of RNA or a protein which in turn controls a biological trait.
Genes can be found on one or more chromosome. They are not always expressed. See the sites below:
2006-11-26 09:07:36 · answer #2 · answered by Richard 7 · 12⤊ 1⤋
you must know that genes are made up of dna and hence we can say that dna are segments of genes
2006-11-26 09:54:47 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋