Chapter 15.2, Problem 27AQP

Summary Introduction

To determine:

The different copolymers produced by mixing polynucleotide phosphorylase with guanine and adenine nucleotides in a ratio of 5 guanine nucleotides and 1 adenine. Also give their theoretical proportions.

Introduction:

The genetic code is made up of codons that contain three nucleotides per codon. The genetic code was broken to know which groups of nucleotide specify the amino acid. Several methods were developed to break the genetic code such as use of homopolymers, and copolymers. Use of homopolymers and copolymers include the formation of synthetic RNAs in which nucleotides are randomly incorporated with the help of enzyme polynucleotide phosphorylase.