Although the number of base-pairs of DNA in the human genome has been known since the 1960s, the estimated number of genes has changed over time as definitions of genes, and methods of detecting them have been refined. Initial theoretical predictions of the number of human genes were as high as 2,000,000. Early experimental measures indicated there to be 50,000–100,000 transcribed genes (expressed sequence tags). Subsequently, the sequencing in the Human Genome Project indicated that many of these transcripts were alternative variants of the same genes, and the total number of protein-coding genes was revised down to ~20,000 with 13 genes encoded on the mitochondrial genome. Of the human genome, only 1–2% consists of protein-coding genes, with the remainder being 'noncoding' DNA such as introns, retrotransposons, and noncoding RNAs.
What sort of variants did the Human Genome Project indicate that many of the measured transcripts were?
alternative variants