Chromosome 3 contains nearly 200 million nucleotide pairs of our genome. If this DNA molecule could be laid end to end, how long would it be? The distance between neighboring base pairs in DNA is typically around 0.34 nm.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Multiplying the size of the chromosome by the distance between consecutive bases gives the end-to-end distance as follows: (200 × 10⁶ nucleotide pairs [np]) × (0.34 × 10-⁹ m/np) = ~0.068 m = ~7 cm.

Chromosome 3 Contains Nearly 200 Million Nucleotide Pairs of Our