is a gene an actual thing?

Question

Could you take one gene, put it under the microscope and see something?

Or does the word 'gene' simply describe the way that some other visible thing is put together?

Answer 1

Sort of. The other answers are right, it is a section of DNA that codes for a protein and contains its own regulatory elements. If you were to look under a microscope, though, you would only see a section of DNA. There's no physical distinction between one stretch of DNA and another, save for the ability for RNA polymerase and transcriptional regulatory elements to read it.

ThinkofDNAaswritingasentencewithoutanyspacesorpunctuation. It's one long continuous strand, but your brain is able to pick out words and make sense of it, the same way that transcriptional machinery is able to locate genes and transcribe them into RNA.

So my view is that genes occupy a sort of middle-ground. They're not quite a distinct object in and of themselves (they mean nothing without transcription) but they're more than just an abstract concept.

Answer 2

I agree with andymanec.

I was going to say "sort of" and then give a similar explanation. LOL.

With Mendel, a gene was an abstract concept...a mathematical unknown...now we still use the term, but in a fuzzy way. It's only in the last 30 years of biology that gene has come to mean a chunk of DNA.

I'd go one better. A gene is a chunk of information.

Answer 3

Yes gene an actual thing. A gene is a locatable region of genomic sequence, corresponding to a unit of inheritance, which is associated with regulatory regions, transcribed regions and/or other functional sequence regions.[

Answer 4

You bet. In cells, genes consist of a long strand of DNA that contains a promoter, which controls the activity of a gene, and coding and non-coding sequence.

Answer 5

A gene would be a section of the DNA strand which makes up a chromosome. So, yes.

Answer 6

Yes, a gene is a physical, tangible thing- it is a portion of DNA, including it's upstream promoter, that codes for a trait.

Answer 7

yes a gene is an actual thing.. i think
it's found in the double helix of DNA strands

Answer 8

gene is a real thing. detailed infor on gene is as follows:
The basic unit in inheritance. There is no general agreement as to the exact usage of the term, since several criteria that have been used for its definition have been shown not to be equivalent.

The facts of mendelian inheritance indicate the presence of discrete hereditary units that replicate at each cell division, producing remarkably exact copies of themselves, and that in some highly specific way determine the characteristics of the individuals that bear them. The evidence also shows that each of these units may at times mutate to give a new equally stable unit (called an allele), which has more or less similar but not identical effects on the characters of its bearers. These hereditary units are the genes, and the criteria for the recognition that certain genes are alleles have been that they (1) arise from one another by a single mutation, (2) have similar effects on the characters of the organism, and (3) occupy the same locus in the chromosome. It has long been known that there were a few cases where these criteria did not give consistent results, but these were explained by special hypotheses in the individual cases. However, such cases have been found to be so numerous that they appear to be the rule rather than the exception. See also Allele; Gene action; Mendelism; Mutation; Recombination (genetics).

The term gene, or cistron, may be used to indicate a unit of function. The term is used to designate an area in a chromosome made up of subunits present in an unbroken unit to give their characteristic effect. See also Chromosome.

Every gene consists of a linear sequence of bases in a nucleic acid molecule. Genes are specified by the sequence of bases in DNA in prokaryotic, archaeal, and eukaryotic cells, and in DNA or ribonucleic acid (RNA) in prokaryotic or eukaryotic viruses. The ultimate expressions of gene function are the formation of structural and regulatory RNA molecules and proteins. These macromolecules carry out the biochemical reactions and provide the structural elements that make up cells. See also Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA); Nucleic acid; Ribonucleic acid (RNA); Virus.

One goal of molecular biology is to understand the function, expression, and regulation of a gene in terms of its DNA or RNA sequence. The genetic information in genes that encode proteins is first transcribed from one strand of DNA into a complementary messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule by the action of the RNA polymerase enzyme. Many kinds of eukaryotic and a limited number of prokaryotic mRNA molecules are further processed by splicing, which removes intervening sequences called introns. In some eukaryotic mRNA molecules, certain bases are also changed posttranscriptionally by a process called RNA editing. The genetic code in the resulting mRNA molecules is translated into proteins with specific amino acid sequences by the action of the translation apparatus, consisting of transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules, ribosomes, and many other proteins. The genetic code in an mRNA molecule is the correspondence of three contiguous (triplet) bases, called a codon, to the common amino acids and translation stop signals; the bases are adenine (A), uracil (U), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). There are 61 codons that specify the 20 common amino acids, and 3 codons that lead to translation stopping. See also Genetic code; Intron.

In many cases, the genes that mediate a specific cellular or viral function can be isolated. The recombinant DNA methods used to isolate a gene vary widely depending on the experimental system, and genes from RNA genomes must be converted into a corresponding DNA molecule by biochemical manipulation using the enzyme reverse transcriptase. The isolation of the gene is referred to as cloning, and allows large quantities of DNA corresponding to a gene of interest to be isolated and manipulated.

After the gene is isolated, the sequence of the nucleotide bases can be determined. The goal of the large-scale Human Genome Project is to sequence all the genes of several model organisms and humans. The sequence of the region containing the gene can reveal numerous features. If a gene is thought to encode a protein molecule, the genetic code can be applied to the sequence of bases determined from the cloned DNA. The application of the genetic code is done automatically by computer programs, which can identify the sequence of contiguous amino acids of the protein molecule encoded by the gene. If the function of a gene is unknown, comparisons of its nucleic acid or predicted amino acid sequence with the contents of huge international databases can often identify genes or proteins with analogous or related functions. These databases contain all the known sequences from many prokaryotic, archaeal, and eukaryotic organisms. Putative regulatory and transcript-processing sites can also be identified by computer. These putative sites, called consensus sequences, have been shown to play roles in the regulation and expression of groups of prokaryotic, archaeal, or eukaryotic genes. However, computer predictions are just a guide and not a substitute for analyzing expression and regulation by direct experimentation

Answer 9

Of course it's an actual thing, have a look at this picture

http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/VL/GG/images/genes.gif

Answer 10

yes it is it is the blue prit of our body when we are still in our mother's womb k.