Given: Virus genome of size 12000 bp, no overlap of genes.
To find: The number of protein molecules that can be synthesised from genome.
Solution:
The average size of protein in virus is 400 aa.
1 codon = 3 bp = 1 aa (Codon codes for 1 amino acid, and a codon consists of 3 nucleotides)
A 400 aa sized protein will need 400 codons = 3 x 400 = 1200 bp
Hence the total number of proteins that can be made is,
Total size of genome in bp/Size of 1 protein in bp = 12000/1200 = 10
The answer is 10 proteins of average length 400 aa.