Chapter 8, Problem 1RQ

Summary Introduction

To review:

The characteristics of the open reading frame.

Introduction:

The reading frame is defined as a deoxyribonucleotide acid (DNA) sequence having a grouping of three successive bases constituting the codons for the amino acid encoded by the DNA. The part of a reading frame that can be translated is defined as an open reading frame (ORF). It begins with a start codon and ends with a stop codon.

Explanation of Solution

Characteristics of the open reading frame areas follows:

1. An open reading frame is a sequence of DNA that is initiated with a start codon ATG (not every time) and terminates with three termination codons (TAA, TAG, TGA).

2. There are six possible ways (three on forward and three on the complementary strand) of translating any nucleotide sequence according to the genetic code into an amino acid sequence.

3. By examining the open reading frame, it is also possible to predict the amino acid that is produced during translation. It is very important for gene prediction and is used to determine which amino acid is encoded by the gene.

4. ORFs can help in determining the sequence homology by having a comparison to known proteins in a process of annotation.

5. An ORF is the sequence with a length that is be divisible by three and is bounded by stop codons.