Question

How long would the peptide be that is translated from this MRNA sequence: 5'-AUGGGCUACCGA-3'?

a) 6 amino acids
b) 9 amino acids
c) 12 amino acids
d) 15 amino acids

Answer 1

The mRNA sequence 5'-AUGGGCUACCGA-3' would translate into a peptide 4 amino acids long, as each amino acid is encoded by a triplet of nucleotides and the given sequence has 12 nucleotides.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine the length of the peptide translated from the mRNA sequence 5'-AUGGGCUACCGA-3', we must understand that each amino acid in a protein is coded for by three nucleotides in the mRNA, known as a codon. Therefore, we divide the number of nucleotides in the sequence by three to determine the number of amino acids.

The given sequence has 12 nucleotides, which would be divided into four codons (three nucleotides per codon). Since each codon corresponds to one amino acid, this mRNA sequence would translate into a peptide that is 4 amino acids long.