Suppose we discovered a form of life like our own which utilized 20 amino acids, but had 6 nitrogeneous bases instead of the 4 our life uses. what would be the minimum length of a codon which could represent all 20 currently used amino acids?

Question

Nathalia Floyd

Biology

16 March, 10:36

Suppose we discovered a form of life like our own which utilized 20 amino acids, but had 6 nitrogeneous bases instead of the 4 our life uses. what would be the minimum length of a codon which could represent all 20 currently used amino acids?

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Alberto Ortega · Answer 1

The minimum legth of a codon could be two. If it was only one of the 6 nitrogeneous bases in a codon, we'd only have 6 possible amino acids. If we have, though, a combination of two amino acids out of the 6 nitrogeneous bases, we would have then 36 possible combinations (6 possibilities for the first position * 6 possibilities for the second position) that would allow the existence of the 20 different amino acids.

In the human case, for example, with only 4 nitrogeneous bases, a combination of two amino acids would be insufficient (4*4=16) for the 20 amino acids.