Difference between Chromosomal DNA and Plasmid DNA (Chromosomal DNA vs Plasmid DNA)

Chromosomal DNA contains instructions as genes for survival, growth and reproduction of an organism. Plasmids are extra chromosomal, self-replicating DNA present in prokaryotes.

Chromosomal DNA vs Plasmid DNA

Chromosomal DNA	Plasmid DNA
Chromosomal DNA carries genetic information as genes in all organisms except some viruses	Plasmids are double stranded circular DNA present in prokaryotes
Chromosomal DNA is genomic DNA	Plasmid DNA is extra chromosomal DNA
Chromosomal DNA present in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes	Plasmid DNA is present only in prokaryotes
Chromosomal DNA is linear in eukaryotes and circular in prokaryotes	Plasmid DNA is always circular in prokaryotes
Chromosomal DNA much larger in size than plasmid DNA	Plsamid DNA size up to 200kb
Generally 1 copy of chromosomal DNA in haploid organisms and 2 copies in diploid organisms	Plasmid copy number per cell ranges from 15 to 700 copies per cell. 15/cell called as low copy number plasmids and 700/cell as high copy number plasmids
Chromosomal DNA replicates only with the replication of genomic DNA	Plasmid DNA can replicate independent of bacterial genomic DNA replication
Chromosomal DNA in eukaryotes have exons and introns, prokaryotic chromosomal DNA has open reading frame, that is with only coding sequences	Plasmid has open reading frame, that is devoid of introns or non-coding sequences
Chromosomal DNA carries genes essential for the survival of organism	Plasmid DNA generally contain genes that codes for proteins involved in antibiotic resistance (R plasmid), fertility factor (F plasmids, or colicin production (Col plasmid)
Chromosmal DNA is used in the study of genome of an organisms	Plasmids are widely used in rDNA technology as cloning vector

*Colicin: Colicins are bactericidal proteins produced by some strains of bacteria, that kills bacteria of the same species.