Of Protein Size and Genomes

Abstract

An approach for approximately calculating the number of genes in a genome is presented, which takes into account the average protein length expected for the species. A number of virus, bacterial and eukaryotic genomes are scrutinized. Genome figures are presented, which support the average protein size of a species as a criterion for assessing life complexity. The human gene distribution in the 23 chromosomes is investigated emphasizing the genomic rate, the mean 'exon' length, and the mean 'exons per gene'. It is shown that storing all genes of a single human definitely requires less than 12 MB.