Exome

An exome is the part of the human genome that codes for proteins, and it represents about 1% of our DNA. The word “exome” comes from the Greek prefix “exe-” meaning “outside”, and “-ome” meaning “body”. So an exome is literally the part of the genome that lies outside of the nucleus.

The human exome consists of roughly 20,000 genes, which is less than 2% of the total number of genes in our genome. However, these genes are responsible for encoding proteins that carry out most of the functions in our cells.