On the length, weight and GC content of the human genome

Allison Piovesan,
Maria Chiara Pelleri,
Francesca Antonaros,
Pierluigi Strippoli,
Maria CaracausiEmail author View ORCID ID profile and
Lorenza Vitale

BMC Research Notes201912:106

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-019-4137-z

Received: 7 December 2018
Accepted: 15 February 2019
Published: 27 February 2019

Abstract

Objective

Basic parameters commonly used to describe genomes including length, weight and relative guanine-cytosine (GC) content are widely cited in absence of a primary source. By using updated data and original software we determined these values to the best of our knowledge as standard reference for the whole human nuclear genome, for each chromosome and for mitochondrial DNA. We also devised a method to calculate the relative GC content in the whole messenger RNA sequence set and in transcriptomes by multiplying the GC content of each gene by its mean expression level.

Results

The male nuclear diploid genome extends for 6.27 Gigabase pairs (Gbp), is 205.00 cm (cm) long and weighs 6.41 picograms (pg). Female values are 6.37 Gbp, 208.23 cm, 6.51 pg. The individual variability and the implication for the DNA informational density in terms of bits/volume were discussed. The genomic GC content is 40.9%. Following analysis in different transcriptomes and species, we showed that the greatest deviation was observed in the pathological condition analysed (trisomy 21 leukaemic cells) and in Caenorhabditis elegans. Our results may represent a solid basis for further investigation on human structural and functional genomics while also providing a framework for other genome comparative analysis.