Re: Of Mice and Men -- and Elephants

["Tom Savin" <lexicon@hotbot.com>]

 Greetings eveyone:

In answer to Jim's question - For the most part, mammalian cells are the same size (ex: red blood cells 8-10 microns for all mammals), the amount of DNA is variable depending on the amount of repeated sequences (as well as the number of chromosomes).  The amphiuma (an amphibian) has the most amount of DNA, orders of magnitude more than humans. Therefore the fraction of DNA compared to body mass does vary, but in mammals it is similar amongst all, not orders of magnitude different.  Finally, the number of cells, because  they are of similar size does increase from mouse to human to elephant. A good all around reference is "Cell and Molecular Biology, Concepts and Experiments" by Gerald Karp, C 1996.  I use this when I teach.
                          Hope this helps,

                             Tom
--

On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 00:30:17   Dukelow, James S Jr wrote:
>
>All this talk of body mass and low dose radiation and mice and men and elephants
>suggests the naive question:
>
>How does the number of cells, the size of the cells, and the fraction of body
>mass comprised of DNA compare for mice, men, and elephants?
>
>Best regards.
>
>Jim Dukelow
>Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
>Richland, WA
>jim.dukelow@pnl.gov
>
>This question is mine and has not been reviewed and/or approved by my management
>or by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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