NEETZoologyMolecular Basis of Inheritance
What is degeneracy in the genetic code?
Options
- AThe ability of the code to read in a contiguous fashion
- BThe presence of punctuation in the code
- CThe ability of a single codon to code for more than one amino acid
- DThe universality of the code across different organisms
Correct answer
C. The ability of a single codon to code for more than one amino acid
Step-by-step solution
The salient features of the genetic code are as follows: (i) The codon is triplet. 61 codons code for amino acids and 3 codons do not code for any amino acids, hence they function as stop codons. (ii) Some amino acids are coded by more than one codon, hence the code is degenerate. (iii) The codon is read in mRNA in a contiguous fashion. There are no punctuations. (iv) The code is nearly universal: for example, from bacteria to human UUU would code for Phenylalanine (phe). Some exceptions to this rule have been foun