a. Controlling the rates of transcription and translation is important in bacteria to avoid collisions between ribosomes and RNA polymerases. Calculate what the maximum rate of translation by a ribosome in a bacterial cell would have to be, in units of amino acids per second, so as not to overtake an RNA polymerase that is transcribing mRNA at a rate of 60 nucleotides per second. b. How long would it take for this bacterial cell to translate an mRNA containing 1800 codons?

Question

Quinton Herrera

Biology

22 October, 14:46

a. Controlling the rates of transcription and translation is important in bacteria to avoid collisions between ribosomes and RNA polymerases. Calculate what the maximum rate of translation by a ribosome in a bacterial cell would have to be, in units of amino acids per second, so as not to overtake an RNA polymerase that is transcribing mRNA at a rate of 60 nucleotides per second. b. How long would it take for this bacterial cell to translate an mRNA containing 1800 codons?

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Lorenzo Frost · Answer 1

Answer: The rate will be 20aminoacids per second and it would take 80 seconds to translate.

Explanation: Translation is the process where mRNA is transformed into a polypeptide. This happens when a ribossome converts 3 nucleotides to 1 aminoacid. For this cell, as the rate is 60 nucleotides per second:

3 nucleotides - 1 aminoacid

60 nucleotides - 60/3 = 20 aminocids

The maximum rate of translation will be 20aminoacids per second.

A codon is a sequence of 3 nucleotides. 1800 codos has 5400 nucleotides.

If the rate is 60 nucleotides per second:

5400/60 = 80s

It would take 80 seconds to translate that piece of mRNA.