The Tomato Has More Genes Than Humans (2024)

FAQs

The Tomato Has More Genes Than Humans? ›

A tomato has almost 32,000 genes—more than a human. There are an estimated 15,000 varieties of tomatoes.

The Tomato Genome Consortium is a group of researchers from around the globe. According to Science X's web-based platform for research and development reporting, the group discovered tomatoes contain about 35,000 genes. The human genome only has about 20,000 genes.

Scientists have discovered that the animal with the most genes--about 31,000--is the near-microscopic freshwater crustacean Daphnia pulex, or water flea. By comparison, humans have about 23,000 genes.

Despite the size difference, tomatoes have more genes (approximately 35,000) than humans (about 20,000-25,000). The overall sequence similarity between human and tomato DNA is relatively low, estimated to be around 50% for conserved genes.

You're right that plants, at least some, have more genes than humans do. Cannabis has about 30,000; the lotus has ~40,000; soybean 46,000; apple trees ~57,000; and the poplar tree ~45,000 according to one source and 73,000 according to another—whereas humans have ~23,000.

Over time, excessive copies of genes that served no biological purpose disappeared but left many functional ones. Some scientists believe the extra DNA helped tomatoes survive during a perilous time on the planet when it was likely still recovering from the aftereffects of a devastating asteroid.

You might be surprised to learn that some species of ferns have over 1200 chromosomes. That's over 26 times more chromosomes than humans' measly 46! In fact, the world record holder for the most chromosomes is the fern Ophioglossum reticulatum with 1260 chromosomes!

Since the onion (Allium cepa) is a diploid organism having a haploid genome size of 15.9 Gb, it has 4.9x as much DNA as does a human genome (3.2 Gb). Other species in the genus Allium vary hugely in DNA content without changing their ploidy.

Paris japonica, the Japanese canopy plant, has the largest genome of any organism analysed to date. At 149 billion base pairs (giga bp or Gbp) of DNA, it's about 50 times bigger than the human genome.

It confirms that our closest living biological relatives are chimpanzees and bonobos, with whom we share many traits. But we did not evolve directly from any primates living today. DNA also shows that our species and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor species that lived between 8 and 6 million years ago.

Is our DNA 100% human? ›

All living things share many functions (e.g., respiration) going back to a very distant past. Most of our DNA determines that we are human, rather than determining how we are different from any other person. So it is not so surprising that the DNA of any two human beings is 99.9 percent identical.

The common tomato Solanum lycopersicum has 12 chromosomes with a modest diploid genome size of 950Mb.

The gene that is responsible for the red color of tomatoes is called the "lycopene beta-cyclase gene," or simply "cbly." This gene codes for an enzyme called lycopene beta-cyclase, which is responsible for the synthesis of lycopene, a pigment that gives tomatoes (and other fruits and vegetables) their red color.

The largest known gene is the human dystrophin gene, which has 79 exons spanning at least 2,300 kilobases (kb).

In 2004, Human Genome Project researchers published the full human genome and estimated that the human genome contained between 20,000-25,000 genes. This number was much smaller than earlier estimates that suggested anywhere from 50,000-100,000 genes.

The corn genome is a hodgepodge of some 32,000 genes crammed into just 10 chromosomes. In comparison, humans have 20,000 genes dispersed among 23 chromosomes.

We humans have somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 genes — a sizable number to be sure, but still considerably fewer than the 31,760 in everyone's favorite nightshade.

"Ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes while genetically modified ones do." (Only Includes Selected European Countries)

In humans, genes vary in size from a few hundred DNA bases to more than 2 million bases. An international research effort called the Human Genome Project, which worked to determine the sequence of the human genome and identify the genes that it contains, estimated that humans have between 20,000 and 25,000 genes.

Genetic Similarities

About 20-60% of our genes can also be found in plants, depending on the species¹. In comparison we share about 80% of our genes with mice², and around 95% of our genes with chimpanzees¹. Most of the genes that plants share with us turn sugars and proteins into energy.