THE GENETIC CODE

Question 1

What three words are the genetic code described as being?

Answer 1

universal
degenerate
non-overlapping

Question 2

What does universal mean?

Answer 2

In almost all living organisms, the same triplet of DNA based codes for the same amino acid

Question 3

How many proteinogenic amino acids are there?

Answer 3

22 BUT 20 FOUND IN THE BODY but 2 are incorporated by special translation mechanisms.

Question 4

How many combinations of amino acids are there?

Answer 4

4 cubed = 64

Question 5

What does degenerate mean?

Answer 5

each amino acid is encoded for by more than one codon
Because of this it is possible for substitution to occurs that changed a single base if DNA but no change occurs in the primary structure of the polypeptide

Question 6

What are the three types of gene mutations?

Answer 6

base substitution
base insertation
base deletion

Question 7

Which type of mutation has the smallest effect and why?

Answer 7

base substitution because the others have a knock-on effect -a reading frame shift

Question 8

what is another word for a triplet on mRNA

Answer 8

codon

Question 9

what is another word for a triplet on the tRNA

Answer 9

anticodon

Question 10

What is in each end of the tRNA?

Answer 10

one end has the amino acid and the other end has the anticodon

Question 11

what is a particular sequence of DNA nucleotide bases or a chromosome called?

Answer 11

a gene

Question 12

Why does the primary structure affect the secondary structure of a protein?

Answer 12

different sequence of amino acid affects the R groups and the interaction between these R groups which changes the secondary structure as it affect interactions here and this affects the tertiary structure and so on