Codon wheel, translation, and gene expression

Why are hox genes important during early development?

1) controls the differentiation (diversity) of specialized cells in a developing zygote 2) important in determining the organism's body plan 3) ultimately controls when and where a body part will develop

What are the steps of translation?

1) start codon signals the beginning, and the ribosome, mRNA, and the start codon come together 2) each codon following the start codon is read (translated), and the tRNA brings the correct amino acid to the ribosome 3) process continues until the stop codon is reached

How do you use the codon wheel?

1) the first letter of the triplet will match with the inner most letter on the codon wheel 2) the second letter of the triplet will then need to match with one of the letters in the second ring on the codon wheel 3) the last letter of the triplet will need to match with one of the letters on the last (outer most) ring on the codon wheel

What is the purpose of the start and stop codons?

The start codon (AUG) marks the beginning of a protein and where translation needs to begin; The stop codons (UGA, UAA, and, UAG) mark the end of the protein and where translation needs to end.

What is translation?

Translation is the process of decoding (reading) the mRNA into a protein

What is a codon?

a triplet of nucleotides found on the mRNA

When does translation begin?

begins when the mRNA leaves the nucleus and attaches to a ribosome

How are proteins formed?

by joining amino acids into a polypeptide chain and the order of amino acids is determined by the combination of nucleotides in the sequence of the mRNA

What is gene expression?

gene expression is defined as the ability of an organism to control which genes are transcribed in response to the environment (turning on and off genes)

what is the codon wheel?

the codon wheel is used to help determine the amino acid sequence based on the codons found on the mRNA

What is the genetic code?

the genetic code is defined as a triplet of nucleotides that determine the sequences of amino acids in a protein

Why are the codons important during translation?

the nucleotide sequence determines the amino acid that will be carried over by the transfer RNA

What are the two steps of gene expression?

transcription and translation