Question

Which of the following correctly describes the word degenerate in relation to the genetic code? A. The reduction from DNA to RNA to Amino Acids during the process of Protein Synthesis. B. Redundancy, each amino acid is coded for by multiple triplet codons. C. When the DNA helix uncoils and loses its structure. D. When the genetic code begins to break down as an organism

Answer 1

B would be correct. Each codon is specific for one amino acid. This code is described as degenerate because a single amino acid may be coded for by multiple codons.

Answer 2

B. Redundancy, each amino acid is coded for by multiple triplet codons.

Step-by-step explanation:

By degeneracy we mean to say that multiple codons can code for a particular amino acid. There are 20 amino acids in general but the number of codons is 64. If there was no degeneracy then there were supposed to be only 20 codons which were specifying these 20 amino acids i.e. each codon was supposed to be unique for a particular amino acid. But, in real many codons can specify an amino acid and this is known as degeneracy of genetic code. For example: leucine, serine and arginine are specified by 6 codons.

The 2 main reasons why degeneracy exists is (1) presence of isoaccepting tRNAs and (2) wobbling.