Eli5: how are anatomical features encoded in DNA?

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AFAIK the only output of DNA transcription are proteins but how are things like skeletal structure encoded? I mean things that are not functional specialization like the shape of my nose or the size of my forehead or the length of my legs.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

To over simplify it; the features are not fully contained in DNA.

Again over simplified but DNA synthesizes proteins and amino acids etc, those in turn influence, along with other factors, what set of proteins etc are built next, which influences what happens next. There are a lot of feedback loops and external checks. Some features like bone length can be a simple “continue until you are told to stop,” your DNA has a default stop point if no external forces and early or late termination then you get whatever you inherited.

You could think of it like DNA being the blueprints and building blocks for every human, complete with a whole ton of custom options (wether they are used or not). A lot of inherited traits like face size and shape are portions of DNA directly and indirectly what other portions of the DNA will be used as a kind of “instruction set”

Even then the DNA isn’t always going to match up with what the end result is. If your sex chromosome is XY, you have something like 99.93% of being born with a male anatomy… But not always

TLDR; it’s a labyrinth of cause and effect and it’s not limited to just the DNA itself.

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