What it means to share DNA with other organisms

Question

We share 60% of our DNA with bananas, but we are clearly not 60% banana.

In: 43

Answer 1

So DNA is just a sequence of proteins that act like instructions for how to build an organism. It’s the foundation of every organism from bacteria to plankton to mushrooms to elephants. So clearly how you sequence DNA can create a lot of different possibilities. There are only 4 types of these proteins, what really matters is how these proteins are sequenced. When we say 50% of our DNA is shared with Bananas we mean that 50% of our DNA sequence is the same as a banana plant. The whole banana plant is the actual organism, the banana is just a fruit. So clearly everything that makes us different from banana plants is contained within that remaining 50%. And the 50% that’s the same might be stuff dealing with Mitochondria or something we don’t think about.