Answer to Question #95140 in Chemistry for Nqobile

Question

The genetic code is said to be degenerate, unambiguous, non-overlapping, without punctuation and is universal. Explain each aspect of this statement

Answer 1

Genetic code degeneracy means that more than one codon (triplets) encode one amino acid.

Non-ambiguity means that a particular codon always encodes the same amino acid.

Nonoverlapping means that the codons do not overlap, while each nucleotide is specific only for one codon.

Absence of punctuations means that there are no specific features indicating the start or end of the codon.

Universality means that the genetic code is the same for all organism and all codon (with few exceptions) encode the same amino acids in all living species.