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A human cell. Each of the 100 trillion cells in the human body (except red blood cells) contains the entire human genome — all the genetic information necessary to build a human being. This information is encoded in 6 billion base pairs, subunits of DNA. (Egg and sperm cells each have half this amount of DNA.)

The cell nucleus. Inside the cell nucleus, 6 feet of DNA are packaged into 23 pairs of chromosomes (one chromosome in each pair coming from each parent.)

A chromosome. Each of the 46 human chromosomes contains the DNA for thousands of individual genes, the units of heredity.

A gene. Each gene is a segment of double-stranded DNA that holds the recipe for making a specific molecule, usually a protein. These recipes are spelled out in varying sequences of the four chemical bases in DNA: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). The bases form interlocking pairs that can fit together in only one way: A pairs with T; G pairs with C.

A protein. Proteins, which are made up of amino acids, are the body’s workhorses — essential components of all organs and chemical activities. Their function depends on their shapes, which are determined by the 50,000 to 100,000 genes in the cell nucleus.

©Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Illustrations by Karen Barnes, Stansbury Ronsaville Wood Inc. for HHMI, as published in Blazing a Genetic Trail, 1991.

as published in March 1993, VHLFF 1:1