What is the difference between chromosome and chromatid

The above structure is a simple diagram of the chromosome. However, the prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells have a different chromosome structure. But they are similar in many ways. The similarities between the prokaryotic and eukaryotic chromosomes are given below. Both the prokaryotic as well as eukaryotic chromosomes have DNA, which is the genetic information. The negatively charged DNA which is present in both the types tend to react with the positively charged proteins for neutralizing their charges.

The genetic material in both the chromosomes contains the coding as well as the non-coding sequences. Both of these groups have extra-chromosomal genetic materials.

The DNA of mitochondria and the chloroplasts in the case of eukaryotes, and plasmids in the prokaryotes. The genetic material in eukaryotes is properly organized in the form of distinct structural bodies, which are known as chromosomes. In the prokaryotic cell, the chromosome formation is not present. Let me take the other guy. Too big. That guy looks something like that. They separate from each other, and then once they've separated from each other, what could happen?

Let me delete some of that stuff over here. Delete that stuff right there. So you have this double helix. They were all connected. They're base pairs. Now, they separate from each other.

Now once they separate, what can each of these do? They can now become the template for each other. If this guy is sitting by himself, now all of a sudden, a thymine base might come and join right here, so these nucleotides will start lining up. So you'll have a thymine and a cytosine, and then an adenine, adenine, guanine, guanine, and it'll keep happening. And then on this other part, this other green strand that was formerly attached to this blue strand, the same thing will happen.

You have an adenine, a guanine, thymine, thymine, cytosine, cytosine. So what just happened? By separating and then just attracting their complementary bases, we just duplicated this molecule, right? We'll do the microbiology of it in the future, but this is just to get the idea. This is how the DNA makes copies of itself. And especially when we talk about mitosis and meiosis, I might say, oh, this is the stage where the replication has occurred.

Now, the other thing that you'll hear a lot, and I talked about this in the DNA video, is transcription. In the DNA video, I didn't focus much on how does DNA duplicate itself, but one of the beautiful things about this double helix design is it really is that easy to duplicate itself. You just split the two strips, the two helices, and then they essentially become a template for the other one, and then you have a duplicate.

Now, transcription is what needs to occur for this DNA eventually to turn into proteins, but transcription is the intermediate step. And then that mRNA leaves the nucleus of the cell and goes out to the ribosomes, and I'll talk about that in a second. So we can do the same thing.

So this guy, once again during transcription, will also split apart. So that was one split there and then the other split is right there. And actually, maybe it makes more sense just to do one-half of it, so let me delete that.

Let's say that we're just going to transcribe the green side right here. Let me erase all this stuff right-- nope, wrong color. Let me erase this stuff right here.

Now, what happens is instead of having deoxyribonucleic acid nucleotides pair up with this DNA strand, you have ribonucleic acid, or RNA pair up with this. And I'll do RNA in magneta. So the RNA will pair up with it. And so thymine on the DNA side will pair up with adenine.

Guanine, now, when we talk about RNA, instead of thymine, we have uracil, uracil, cytosine, cytosine, and it just keeps going. This is mRNA. Now, this separates. That mRNA separates, and it leaves the nucleus. It leaves the nucleus, and then you have translation. The transfer RNA were kind of the trucks that drove up the amino acids to the mRNA, and this all occurs inside these parts of the cell called the ribosome.

But the translation is essentially going from the mRNA to the proteins, and we saw how that happened.

You have this guy-- let me make a copy here. Let me actually copy the whole thing. This guy separates, leaves the nucleus, and then you had those little tRNA trucks that essentially drive up. So maybe I have some tRNA. Let's see, adenine, adenine, guanine, and guanine. This is tRNA. That's a codon. A codon has three base pairs, and attached to it, it has some amino acid. And then you have some other piece of tRNA. Let's say it's a uracil, cytosine, adenine.

And attached to that, it has a different amino acid. Then the amino acids attach to each other, and then they form this long chain of amino acids, which is a protein, and the proteins form these weird and complicated shapes.

So just to kind of make sure you understand, so if we start with DNA, and we're essentially making copies of DNA, this is replication. You are transcribing the information from one form to another: transcription.

Now, when the mRNA leaves the nucleus of the cell, and I've talked-- well, let me just draw a cell just to hit the point home, if this is a whole cell, and we'll do the structure of a cell in the future. If that's the whole cell, the nucleus is the center. That's where all the DNA is sitting in there, and all of the replication and the transcription occurs in here, but then the mRNA leaves the cell, and then inside the ribosomes, which we'll talk about more in the future, you have translation occur and the proteins get formed.

So mRNA to protein is translation. You're translating from the genetic code, so to speak, to the protein code. The study of these differences will give greater insights not only about evolution but also of the consequences brought along the process. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website.

Animal Cells Prokaryotic Cells Vs. Eukaryotic Cells Amphibians Vs. Reptiles Anatomy Vs. Physiology Diffusion vs. Osmosis Mitosis Vs. Meiosis Chromosome Vs. Bio Explorer. Cell Biology Difference Between Genetics. Table of Contents What is a Chromosome? What is a Chromatid? Difference Between Chromosome and Chromatid References. What is a Chromosome? By definition, a chromatid is one of the two identical components that make up a duplicated chromosome.

As such, the chromosome is said to be compose of the identical sister chromatids. Chromatids sister are formed after the chromatin condenses during metaphase.