Question

Gene is made up of:
(a) Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
(b) Ribonucleic acid (RNA)
(c) Proteins
(d) Enzymes

Answer 1

Hint: A gene is considered as a physical and functional unit of heredity. It is also called as blue-print of life i.e. it contains all the information related to the structure, the function of organs, and various processes that are essential for life.

Complete answer:
A sequence of nucleotides in DNA that contains all the information required for the synthesis of a particular protein is called Gene. So, we can say that the gene for (say) albumin is certain base pairs long i.e. the stretch of a fixed number of nucleotides of the DNA have complete information for the synthesis of albumin. This stretch would then be called a gene for albumin.
Additional information:
The term ‘gene’ is derived from the Greek word ‘gonos’ which means offspring and procreation. It was first introduced by Wilhelm Johannsen in 1909. He was a Danish plant physiologist and geneticist. For a gene to be expressed, it is first copied into RNA and the process of copying is called Transcription. In this process, an enzyme called RNA polymerase copies the sequence of one gene from the DNA to RNA. In the process of translation, the nucleotides on RNA are read in groups of 3 which we call codons. Each codon codes for one type of amino acid. Then the ribosomes synthesize the protein by reading the codons on the RNA.
So, the correct answer is ‘Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)’.

Note: DNA is basically a polymer of nucleotides. Certain fixed numbers of nucleotides on DNA are termed as a gene only when they have complete information for the synthesis of one functional protein. An immense number of genes, together make up one chromosome and all the chromosomes together form the genome of an organism. The number of chromosomes varies among species.