Question 5: the human genome contains about 3 billion base pairs. during the first cell division after fertilization of a human embryo, s phase is approximately three hours long. assuming an average dna polymerase rate of 50 nucleotides/second over the entire s phase, what is the minimum number of origins of replication you would expect to find in the human genome

5556.

Explanation:

By the orientation of this question, we will not take in account the information in literature that states that human genome has tens of thousands origin of replication.

Simple math: 3 hours equals 180 minutes, 10800 seconds. Assuming a DNA pol rate of 50 nucleotides/second, we are talking about 540000 nucleotides by every origin of replication on the S phase time.

If the homan genome is about 3 billion base pairs long, 3,000,000/540000= 5555.55, and goes round up to 5556 for the matter of this question.