GCSE: Size Order of: Nucleus, Chromosomes etc...

Hello,

Kind of confused with regards the size order of the following: cell, nucleus, chromosome, gene and DNA... from what I've seen online there are a lot of different answers, but the most common one is (in descending order in terms of size):

Cell
Nucleus
DNA
Chromosome
Gene

But, I've just been studying this, and quoting from my textbook:

"Chromosomes are made up of large molecules of DNA..." and "A gene is a small section of DNA"... so surely if chromosomes are made up of DNA, then they must be larger, like proteins are larger than individual amino acids.

Any help would be much appreciated.

The explanation in the textbook is right. A gene is a small section of DNA, in other words, a part of a chromosome. Yet, (and I'm only guessing,) the order of size you found out probably refers to the total amount of DNA in a cell, which consists of all 46 chromosomes (in humans, I mean).

Hope this helps!

Oh... yeah, that makes a lot of sense so it's probably right, surprised I didn't think about that before!

Thank you very much