Video Transcript
How many chromosomes are contained
within a single human body, somatic, cell?
You’ll recall that eukaryotes, like
humans, are characterized by the presence of a membrane-bound nucleus to contain
their DNA. In humans, if you were to unpack
all the DNA inside a single nucleus, you would get about two meters worth of
DNA. This isn’t one long, continuous
piece of DNA. Instead, it’s organized into
structures called chromosomes.
In humans, there’s 23 pairs of
chromosomes, or 46 in total. Here’s what one of these
chromosomes might look like. Each chromosome is a highly
packaged molecule of DNA that’s coiled up and wrapped around special proteins called
histones. Because of this extensive packing,
a lot of DNA can fit inside a single cell.
To get back to our question, 46
chromosomes are contained in a single body cell.
