Q. Assume that there are 6 types of nitrogen bases are available and 37 types of an amino acid are available for protein synthesis. In genetic code, each codon will be made up of how many minimum number of nitrogen bases?

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Solution:

If we consider codon to be of a single nucleotide, they will only specify 6 amino acid out of 37. Hence, it can’t be a single nucleotide. A doublet code could code for 36 amino acids (6 x 6). A triple codon would code for 216 amino acids (6 X 6 X 6) and can provide plenty of information in the DNA molecule to specify the placement of all 37 amino acids. Hence, in this case, the codon has to be a triplet.