Standard 4b Preknowledge
4b) Students know how to apply the genetic coding rules to predict the sequence of amino acids from a sequence of codons in RNA.
CALIFORNIA FRAMEWORKS SUMMARY:
The sequence of amino acids in protein is provided by the genetic information found in DNA. In prokaryotes, mRNA transcripts of a coding sequence are copied from the DNA as a single contiguous sequence. In eukaryotes, the initial RNA transcript, while in the nucleus, is composed of exons, sequences of nucleotides that carry useful information for protein synthesis, and introns, sequences that do not. Before leaving the nucleus, the initial transcript is processed to remove introns and splice exons together. The processed transcript, then properly called mRNA and carrying the appropriate codon sequence for a protein, is transported from the nucleus to the ribosome for translation.
Each mRNA has sequences, called codons, that are decoded three nucleotides at a time. Each codon specifies the addition of a single amino acid to a growing polypeptide chain. A start codon signals the beginning of the sequence of codons to be translated, and a stop codon ends the sequence to be translated into protein. Students can write out mRNA sequences with start and stop codons from a given DNA sequence and use a table of the genetic code to predict the primary sequences of proteins.