What exactly are genes?

density

Are genes any more than sets of instructions to produce sequences of amino acids? Do they do anything directly besides provide the code to build proteins/enzymes?

Improbable

Not quite sure what you're looking for so maybe if you elaborate a bit more, we might be able to provide a better answer. But broadly speaking, yes, gene's simply encode for proteins and are a unit of inheritance, i.e. passing genetic material from one generation to the next.

chughes

If you need to tell the sex of a chromosome, just pull down it's genes

(Leaving Cert Biology joke from many years ago...)

norrie rugger

density wrote: »

Are genes any more than sets of instructions to produce sequences of amino acids? Do they do anything directly besides provide the code to build proteins/enzymes?

What is binary? Just a coding sequence also but look at what can be done with that

the product of the code is more important than the simple code

Tree

there's a few ways of defining a gene. the most basic definition is the DNA sequence including introns and exons that are converted into the working mRNA. However, this doesnt quite take into account stuff like promoters and regulators, and that some genes are alternately spliced and others are overlapped in the code. It's all terribly interesting....