Are There Genes Outside the Cell’s Nucleus?
Yes. There’s actually another small set of genes that we all possess, inside our cells but outside the cell nucleus. The cell nucleus is where most of our genes reside on the 23 pairs of chromosomes already discussed. The additional genes, which make up less than 1 percent of a cell’s DNA, are the mitochondrial genes, and they exist as circular strands of DNA inside mitochondria, the “energy factories” of cells. (The singular for mitochondria is mitochondrion.
Yes. There’s actually another small set of genes that we all possess, inside our cells but outside the cell nucleus. The cell nucleus is where most of our genes reside on the 23 pairs of chromosomes already discussed. The additional genes, which make up less than 1 percent of a cell’s DNA, are the mitochondrial genes, and they exist as circular strands of DNA inside mitochondria, the “energy factories” of cells.
