Eli5 what makes everyones dna unique and how can we see that under the microscopen?

Question

I was wondering how each dna off someone is unique to another and how we can see those changes.

In: 5

Answer 1

We can’t see the structure of someone’s DNA under a microscope. We have to take a sample of cells and run a process on them. This is called sequencing a genome. In the end, we get a list of billions of letters (ACGT), and the order of those letters represents the structure of the DNA.

Now, all humans’ DNA is 99.9% similar. Meaning we share almost all of it. That .1% is still millions of letters in the DNA sequence, but it’s a very small portion of the total genome.

We share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, and about 50% of our DNA is shared with bananas.