Question

A strand of DNA that is 36 nucleotides long codes for how many amino acids?

Answer 1

See answer below

Step-by-step explanation:

Hi there,

Assuming this DNA strand is fully capable of being mature mRNA (5' m7G cap and PolyA tail), nucleotides lead to an mRNA codon, which is 3 nucleotides per codon. In turn, 1 codon leads to 1 amino acid. However, as a single strand, it must be capable of terminating translation, which always requires a stop codon, and thus 3 nucleotides. Hence, we must subtract this from the total amount of codons first.

`36 \ ncltd \ (1 \ codon)/(3 \ ncltd) = 12 \ codon\\12 \ codon - 1 \ codon \ = 11 \ codon\\11 \ codons\ (1 A.A.)/(1 \ codon) = 11 \ A. A.`

Hence, only 11 amino acids will be coded by a single DNA strand 36 ncltd long.

thanks,