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So there are 39 trillion bacterial cells in a human body, and ~30 trillion 'human' cells in our body. EXCEPT that 25 of the 30 trillion human cells in our body
by toufka 11y ago
So there are 39 trillion bacterial cells in a human body, and ~30 trillion 'human' cells in our body. EXCEPT that 25 of the 30 trillion human cells in our body don't even have any human DNA in them (red blood cells lack a nucleus, cannot divide, and do not contain human genetic information).
So depending on how you draw the line there are 39 trillion non-human nuclei in a human body, and only 5 trillion human nuclei. That brings our non-human:human genetic ratio right back to 10:1. Though that too is misleading given the amount of DNA in each of those nuclei. (human cells have significantly more DNA in their genome than bacterial cells)
These headlines are ridiculous.
- InclinedPlane 11y agoBacteria don't have nuclei. Also, you could enlist the population of mitochondria to weigh against bacteria if you really wanted to.
- jhbadger 11y ago"Bacteria don't have nuclei" isn't the same thing as eukaryotic cells not having nuclei, though, as they still are functional cells with genes. The point isn't the presence or absence of a morphological feature, it is that eukaryotic cells lacking nuclei are hardly even cells, as they lack DNA entirely. As for the mitochondria, why would they be "against" bacteria? They are the enslaved proletariat of the bacterial kingdom! When the revolution comes, eukaryotes will be screwed.
- rossdavidh 11y agoTrue, but bacteria have an analogous nucleoid, which contains genetic information. Also, the mitochondria have a lot less genetic information than the cells. More to the point about ridiculous headlines, the ratio of 10:1 is easily within the possibilities, given the uncertainty in both estimates.
- toufka 11y agoYep - you're correct, bacteria do not have a nucleus either. I was swapping the words around to try and create a parallel sentence and I thought I had corrected 'nuclei' to 'genomes' in my edit, but apparently I did not. "there are 39 trillion separate non-human genomes in a human body, and only 5 trillion human nuclei." And you'd be correct in pointing out that that sentence is also a little wonky. Which is the best metric? Nuclei, cells, dividable cells, base pairs, non-redundant base pairs, protein-encoding base pairs, expressed human protein, mass, species, etc? It's difficult to get the nomenclature exactly parallel between mammalian and bacterial cells, much less fungal or viral material. But that's also the point. It's tricky to compare, and shouting that one comparison is wrong is just kind of click-baity.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]