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The human body has 37.2 trillion cells, most containing tightly coiled strands of DNA. Unwound, the DNA would stretch over 10 billion miles. Red blood cells lack DNA, and 8% of human DNA comes from retroviruses. 5000 strands of DNA are needed to compare to a single human hair.
The average human body is made up of approximately 37.2 trillion cells, and most human cells contain tightly coiled strands of DNA. DNA is used as a template in cell replication and functioning. It has been estimated that if every single strand of DNA in the average human body were unwound and placed end to end, it would stretch over 10 billion miles, or more than double the distance between Earth and Pluto. Most of this DNA would come from mitochondria, which are organelles within cells that can reproduce and carry a unique genome. While individual mitochondria have much smaller amounts of DNA than a cell nucleus, there can be as many as 2000 mitochondria in a single human cell.
Learn more about DNA:
Not all human cells contain DNA. Red blood cells, for example, lack a cell nucleus altogether and are produced in the bone marrow.
It has been estimated that about 8% of human DNA comes from retroviruses that have inserted themselves into our genetic code over millions of years of evolution.
Nearly 5,000 strands of DNA would have to be placed next to each other to compare the width of a single human hair.
