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2007-01-10 15:27:16 · 5 answers · asked by brian 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
By reading the genetic code in groups of three you increase the number of possible amino acid codes.
Think of it this way, if a singe base codes for a single amino acid there would only be 4 possible codons, one for each base.
If 2 bases make up a codon, there are 16 possible codons (4X4, or 4 squared)
but because three bases make up a nucleotide, you can have 64 possible combinations (4x4x4, or 4 to the power of three).
2007-01-11 01:28:29 · answer #1 · answered by floundering penguins 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are three bases per amino acid, so in principle one could repesent over 60 amino acids. But some acids are represented by more than one combination, and you need a stop code, so there are 20 acids by the time you are done.
2007-01-10 15:32:03 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
They are read in triplets (called codons); so ABC =one thing, DCA another etc. There are only 20 because more than one triplet codes for the same amino acid and some are stop/start codons.
2007-01-10 15:32:00 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
There are actually 22 coded amino acids. 2 are just super obscure (selenocysteine and pyrrolysine)
2007-01-10 15:51:25 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
The same way 26 letters on our alphabet give us more than 500,000 words in the English language. Think about it.
2007-01-10 15:35:47 · answer #5 · answered by Brad 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋