As a future biologist, you are studying alien cells from the planet Pandora in the Alpha Centauri star system. You find that these cells contain RNA consisting of 10 different nucleotide bases, and proteins consisting of 76 different amino acids. You hypothesize that the smallest possible codons in the genetic code of these alien cells would contain how many nucleotide "letters" per codon?

a) 1 b) 2c) 3 d) 4 e) 5

Question

Camryn Liu

Biology

20 August, 14:45

As a future biologist, you are studying alien cells from the planet Pandora in the Alpha Centauri star system. You find that these cells contain RNA consisting of 10 different nucleotide bases, and proteins consisting of 76 different amino acids. You hypothesize that the smallest possible codons in the genetic code of these alien cells would contain how many nucleotide "letters" per codon?

a) 1 b) 2c) 3 d) 4 e) 5

+5

Answers (1)

Know the Answer?

Alexa Griffith · Answer 1

Answer: c) 3

Explanation:

A codon is specified for by 3 different base nucleotide. Three base nucleotide specifies an amino acid which has specific structure and fumction. An amino acid can be specify by more than one triplet codes called codon. Example is valine and phenylalanine. Valine has 4 different bases combination specifying for it while phenyalanine has 2 different base combination specifying for it.