What is the basic unit of heredity?

The basic unit of heredity is the gene. A gene is a specific sequence of nucleotide bases that contains the instructions for the synthesis of proteins, which carry out the functions necessary for the development and maintenance of organisms. Genes are inherited from parents to offspring and are responsible for the transmission of characteristics or traits from one generation to the next.

While chromosomes are structures that house many genes and consist of DNA tightly coiled around proteins, they themselves are not the basic units of heredity. Nucleotides, which are the building blocks of DNA and RNA, play a crucial role in the structure of genes, but they do not represent heredity on their own. RNA, while essential for translating the genetic information into proteins, is a product of gene expression and not a unit of heredity itself. Thus, the concept of heredity is fundamentally linked to genes, making them the correct answer in this context.