The genetic code Bicone Toy The genetic code has several important properties: ces ‘The ribosome has two sites on it surface, one for a tRNA already oer triplet code With 20 amino acids and start and stop signals to code bald Ga Raia pun, for and only four bases to do it, one base per amino acid andl he othe forte RNA cary will not do and neither will two, Using three bases gives | | the next amino acd tobe attacre 64 codons which is more than enough, | | tothe chain. Amino acids are non-overlapping Each set of three bases forms one triplet. The triplets do added one at atime in a repeatin not overlap, so no base from one triplet is part of another, | process. triplet, avoiding confusion about which amino acid is —____— being coded for. Some amino acids have more than one codon. For | example, there are four different codons for the amino acid proline, As long as the codon starts with CC the | amino acid proline willbe put into the polypeptide, ‘The code is said to be degenerate. This offers some protection against mutation, ‘degenerate