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GCSE Biology · key term
Material, made of DNA in cells, that carries inherited instructions affecting how cells and organisms develop and function.
Used by AQA and OCR
Specification 4.1.1.1 · Paper 1
The material that carries the biological instructions controlling a cell; it is made of DNA.
Revise: Eukaryotes and ProkaryotesAlthough cells vary greatly, they contain cytoplasm enclosed by a cell membrane and have genetic material made of DNA. The position of this genetic material provides the key distinction between two broad types of cell: eukaryotic and prokaryotic.
Paper 1 (Foundation), Paper 2 (Foundation), Paper 3 (Higher), Paper 4 (Higher)
Link location to function: state where the genetic material is found, then explain that its genes provide instructions affecting cell structure and activity.
Use the exact phrase the entire genetic material of an organism when defining the genome.
Do not confuse a genome with a gene: a gene is only one section of DNA, whereas the genome includes all of an organism’s genetic material.
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Genetic material contains inherited instructions that affect these activities and therefore control how cells and organisms develop and function. Sections of the DNA provide instructions for making proteins. Proteins can form cell structures or act as enzymes, so changing which proteins a cell makes can change what that cell does.
The material that carries inherited biological information and contains instructions involved in how cells and organisms develop and function.