Suppose that a primitive living organism was discovered on Mars. It has a geneti

Question

Suppose that a primitive living organism was discovered on Mars. It has a genetic system similar to our own in that the sequence of subunits in the genetic material (nucleic acid) is used as a code to specify the linear sequence of subunits of a different type of molecule (protein). In this organism, the nucleic acids are made up from four kinds of nucleotides, but the proteins contain only five kinds of amino acids. The organism produces 100 different proteins, each 10 amino acids in length. What is the minimum necessary number of bases in a codon of this organism? In order to make the 10 proteins, what is the absolute minimum number of nucleotides necessary in the genome of the organism? Define the following: Pribnow Box Intron

Explanation / Answer

Genes carry the genetic code, which is a collection of “codons” of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid). These codons contain the information about polypeptide chain sequencing during “translation.”

A triplet code (codons) with four bases (adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C)) gives 64 combinations (Eg: AUG, UAG, UGA, etc.), which code for 20 specific amino acids in humans.

a). In the given example, 5 different amino acids. Means at least 2 bases are needed for each codon, because two bases arrange in 4^2 fashions that give raise to 16 codons.

b). Given that, each protein is 10 amino acids length. Each amino acid is coded by a codon with at least two nucleotides. Thus, each protein contains minimum 10*2 (=20) nucleotides in its structure and 10 proteins contains 10*20 (= 200) nucleotides in its structure.

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