A small, seemingly unremarkable fern that only grows on a remote Pacific island was on Friday crowned the Guinness World Record holder for having the largest genome of any organism on Earth.
A small, seemingly unremarkable fern that only grows on a remote Pacific island was on Friday crowned the Guinness World Record holder for having the largest genome of any organism on Earth.
The New Caledonian fern, Tmesipteris oblanceolata, has more than 50 times more DNA packed into the nucleus of its cells than humans do.
If the DNA from one of the fern’s cells — which are just a fraction of a millimeter wide — were unraveled, it would stretch out to 106 meters (350 feet), scientists said in a new study.
Stood upright, the DNA would be taller than the tower that holds London’s famous Big Ben bell.
The fern’s genome weighed in at a whopping 160 gigabase pairs (Gbp), the measurement for DNA length.
That is seven percent larger than the previous record holder, the Japanese flowering plant Paris japonica.
The human genome is a relatively puny 3.1 Gbp.
If our DNA were unraveled, it would be around two meters long.
Study co-author Ilia Leitch, a researcher at the UK’s Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, told AFP that the team was « really surprised to find something even bigger than Paris japonica ».
« We thought we’d already reached the biological limit. We’re really pushing at the extremes of biology, » she said.
