Biochemistry 2280A Lecture : Topic 24
29 Dec 2011
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Number of human diseases related to defects in translation process. The genetic code spells out the amino acid sequence in 3 letter words called codons. How many amino acids are used for protein synthesis in the cell? (how many different codons does the cell need?) Given any nucleotide can be aug or c, how many different 3 base codons are there? a)4 b)8 c)16 d)32 e)64. One letter code with aguc would provide 4 codons. A two letter code would provide: 4 x 4 = 16 codons. A three letter code would provide: 4 x 4 x 4 = 64 codons. Three letter code will work as ther are 20 amino acids, a 3 letter code (64 codons) is sufficient. Minimum that would code for 20 amino acids. First is aug next is ccc, next is gca coding for respective amino acids.
