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Eukaryotic Genomes
A eukaryotic cell has millions of base pairs of DNA that it must keep organized. During cell division, all of the DNA in a cell is replicated and segregated to the daughter cells. In order to keep the DNA organized, DNA is packaged into manageable pieces called chromosomes.
In this Lesson, we'll discuss the packaging of DNA in eukaryotic cells and see how it affects gene expression.
The levels of DNA packaging provide a mechanism for regulating transcription. DNA that contains many genes is not packaged as tightly as DNA that contains few genes, so it's more accessible for transcription.