Chapter 19 · Biochemistry
19.1The Human Genome Project
7 min · two checks
Predict
What did sequencing the human genome actually list?
The idea
- Describe the genome as a sequence, not a destiny.
- Place biochemistry as the chemistry of those molecules.
The Human Genome Project read the sequence of human DNA: the order of A, T, G, and C. Genes are stretches of that sequence that cells use to build proteins, and a great deal of the rest regulates when those genes are used. A sequence is not a biography. The same gene list builds a neuron and a liver cell because the cells express different parts of it.
Biochemistry studies the molecules that make the list matter: carbohydrates for fuel and structure, lipids for membranes and stores, proteins for almost every job, and nucleic acids for information. Every one of them is an organic molecule of the kind the previous chapter classified. This chapter adds the biological assembly patterns.
Keep these
- A genome is a base sequence.
- Genes are used selectively; the sequence is not a script of every cell.
- Biochemistry studies carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids.