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Article: Codon
- Article from:
- Chemistry: Foundations and Applications
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Codon
The genetic
code
(which includes the codon) serves as a basis for establishing how genes encoded in
DNA
are decoded into proteins. A critical interaction in protein
synthesis
is the interaction between the codon in messenger
RNA
(mRNA) and the anticodon in an aminoacyl-transfer RNA (aminoacyl-tRNA).
A codon is a triplet of adjacent nucleotides in mRNA that specifies an amino acid to be incorporated in a protein. Because the codon can be made from three of the four possible ribonucleotides, there are 4
3
or 64 combinations, leading to 64 different codons. The first letter of the codon is at the 5
′
-end, while the last letter is at the 3
′
-end. For example, 5
...