What are the Smallest Genomes?
Genomes are the code of life — the molecular blueprint that builds every living organism. Found coded in DNA in the nucleus of the cell, the human genome has about 3 billion amino acid base pairs and 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. This is relatively typical with a metazoan organism. Genome size does not directly correlate to the complexity of the organism, but does abstractly, especially when comparing genome lengths between multicellular and unicellular organisms. Parasites have the smallest genomes of any multicellular organism, having undergone a process known as genetic streamlining. Some organisms have truly tiny genomes, the smallest genomes yet discovered.
