Caitlin Monaghan
Period 1
Animal vs. Plant vs. Human DNA
Every living organism has cells that contain genetic information. Plant, animal, and
human DNA has the same structure; the double helix. All of DNA has the chemical
building blocks, nucleotides. All of plant, animal, and human DNA contain dexoyribose,
phosphate, and the four nucleotides adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. So, this
shows that all the DNA in plants, animals, and humans are all chemically and structurally
similar.
So if animal, human, and plant DNA is so similar, how are they so different? The
difference in DNA is how the nucleotides are arranged. This arrangement determines
how protein will be made. Nucleotides determine information that encodes whether and
organism will have scales and legs or a stem and leaves. Other things that determine the
difference between plant, animal, and human DNA is the organization of genes, base
pairs of DNA the organism has, and total size of genomes. For example plants have
larger genomes than animals do causing them to be different.
All of these differences in DNA between plants, animals, and humans are caused by
evolution. Like Charles Darwin’s theories with his finches, that things had to adapt and
change to survive. That is kind of true in this situation. Plants, animals, and humans share
some of the same proteins but because the DNA copying process is so imperfect that
mistakes have been made that change proteins slightly in different organisms. This shows
that many living things are similar even though they look so different.
Overall, plant, animal, and human DNA is very similar and very different all at the same
time. Because of little changes that happen during the DNA copying process nucleotides
and their codes have changed causing organisms to change. This shows the diversity even
in humans; as a result of the imperfect DNA copying process.