Table of Contents
Why is the genetic code degenerate but not ambiguous?
The genetic code is a degenerate code, which means that there is redundancy so that most amino acids are encoded by more than one triplet combination (codon). Although it is a redundant code, it is not an ambiguous code: under normal circumstances, a given codon encodes one and only one amino acid.
What is an amino acid in DNA?
Amino acids are a set of 20 different molecules used to build proteins. The sequence of the amino acid chain causes the polypeptide to fold into a shape that is biologically active. The amino acid sequences of proteins are encoded in the genes.
How do you turn a DNA sequence into a protein sequence?
During transcription, the enzyme RNA polymerase (green) uses DNA as a template to produce a pre-mRNA transcript (pink). The pre-mRNA is processed to form a mature mRNA molecule that can be translated to build the protein molecule (polypeptide) encoded by the original gene.
How do you translate a DNA sequence into a protein?
Basically, a gene is used to build a protein in a two-step process:
- Step 1: transcription! Here, the DNA sequence of a gene is “rewritten” in the form of RNA.
- Step 2: translation! In this stage, the mRNA is “decoded” to build a protein (or a chunk/subunit of a protein) that contains a specific series of amino acids.
What does AAA mean in DNA?
AAA proteins or ATPases Associated with diverse cellular Activities are a protein family sharing a common conserved module of approximately 230 amino acid residues.
What is Uuu in DNA?
The genetic code is a set of three-letter combinations of nucleotides called codons, each of which corresponds to a specific amino acid or stop signal. They showed that the RNA sequence UUU specifically coded for the amino acid phenylalanine.
What is degenerate DNA?
Degeneracy means a mutation altering one base in a codon is unlikely to alter the amino acid structure of the encoded protein, because the codon is likely to still encode the same amino acid. This makes the genetic code more fault-tolerant to point mutations.
What does it mean for the DNA code to be redundant but not ambiguous?
The genetic code is redundant (more than one codon may specify a particular amino acid) but not ambiguous; no codon specifies more than one amino acid. Codons must be read in the correct reading frame (correct groupings) in order for the specified polypeptide to be produced.