Talk:Genome

Remove Composition of the human genome pie chart

Composition of the human genome

The composition of the human genome pie chart was added to this article on Nov. 9, 2017. It was inaccurate then and it's even more inaccurate today. It's time to remove this figure. If there are no objections from people who are monitoring this article, I will remove it in a few days.

Here are some of the major inaccuracies.

1. There's no mention of important functional regions such as regulatory sequences and noncoding genes.

2. The chart perpetuates the common confusion between coding regions and protein-coding genes. The coding region occupies about 1% of the genome (not 2%) but protein-coding genes (exons + introns) take up almost 40%.

3. The chart doesn't mention virus-related DNA sequences (~4%).

4. There is considerable overlap between introns and repetitive DNA; they are not separate categories as implied in the chart. (About 40% of intron sequences is transposon-related.)

5. Segmental duplications are not a separate category.

6. Heterochromatin is not a separate category.

Genome42 (talk) 14:37, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Genome42 I created a new optically better version: File:Components of the Human Genome.png. Can you give me source with the correct values? Then I can upload a new version of my image with actual percentages, I can also modify the lettering. Sciencia58 (talk) 22:31, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

First, this is an article about genomes, not the human genome. There's a separate article for Human genome where such a figure might be considered.

Second, it's not possible to make such a pie chart for reason #4 above and also because the amount of some of the categories is controversial. Those controversies, such as the amount of transposon-related DNA, the size of centromeres, and the number of non-coding genes, should be discussed in the human genome article. It's not appropriate to take a stance on those controversies by putting them in a pie chart. Genome42 (talk) 15:31, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Genome, genotype and genes of an entire population

The definitions in the respective Wikipedia pages do not appear to differ between genotype and genome. This is also evident in most definitions I found. Is there a difference? Clarification would help - and perhaps a mention in the Introduction to Genetics article (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_genetics). “The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material”(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genotype). There is a somewhat different definition of genotype from the NHGRI at NIH (https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/genotype). “a genome is all the genetic information of an organism” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome) It would also be informative to discuss the genetic information of the entire population of an organism. Does it have a name? How many more genes are present in the population of an organism than in a single individual? Presumably unknown but the current academic thoughts (or lack of) would be interesting. QuietJohn (talk) 16:39, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Centimorgans

If you know and you think the article should discuss it: how big is the (haploid) human genome, as measured in centimorgans? —Quantling (talk | contribs) 23:43, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

new record plant genome

Tmesipteris oblanceolata at 160 Gb Lavateraguy (talk) 22:37, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

List of genome sizes

What's the point? We could just as easily describe variation in genome sizes in the text. Having a list just invites people to add their favorite organism producing a random sample of genomes from different phyla and the list will become very long.

Besides, there are bound to be errors; for example, there are about 20,000 protein-coding genes in the human genome but there are also a indeterminate number of non-coding genes so the total number of genes in the list is incorrect. Let's not get into those kinds of debate. Genome42 (talk) 15:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I deleted the list six weeks ago for the reasons stated above and because it doesn't make a significant contribution to the article. My edit was reverted by anonymous user 134.21.38.140 and this user has not responded to my request to engage in discussion. I'll give it a few more days then I'll remove the list again unless someone raises an objection. Genome42 (talk) 14:46, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Citation bot

Somebody recently ran Citation bot on this article. It added things like the issue number, bibcode, and pmid to several citations. Can someone please explain to me why it's so important to add this garbage to Wikipedia citations? Genome42 (talk) 23:40, 19 December 2024 (UTC)