In relation to a work sheet on translation and transcription: If you worked backward, starting with the amino acid sequence of the protein, would you obtain the same DNA nucleotide sequence? Why or why not? THANKS!!!
I have been thinking...and I think this is possible, because it is easy to find the pairs, because working backwards is almost the same as working forwards. But, once you are done with the changing of the bases, to get the nucleotide sequence you would have to change all of the uracils to thymines. But, what happens if when going forward codons are removed, you wouldn't be able to work backwards then right? You wouldn't know that they were missing?
but would it change because some of the codons are extracted during the introns excision ??
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To determine whether you would obtain the same DNA nucleotide sequence by working backward from the amino acid sequence of a protein, we need to understand the process of translation and transcription.
Translation is the process in which the mRNA molecule is used by ribosomes to synthesize a specific sequence of amino acids to form a protein. This process takes place in the cytoplasm of the cell.
Transcription, on the other hand, is the process in which DNA is used as a template to synthesize an mRNA molecule. This process occurs in the nucleus of the cell. The mRNA molecule then carries the genetic information from the DNA to the ribosomes where translation occurs.
Now, if we consider working backward, starting with the amino acid sequence of the protein and trying to obtain the DNA nucleotide sequence, we would encounter some challenges:
1. Genetic Code Degeneracy: The genetic code, which governs the translation process, is degenerate, meaning that multiple codons can code for the same amino acid. For example, the amino acid leucine can be encoded by six different codons: UUA, UUG, CUU, CUC, CUA, and CUG. Therefore, multiple DNA nucleotide sequences could result in the same amino acid sequence.
2. Lost Information: The translation process does not retain all the information from the DNA nucleotide sequence. During transcription, the non-coding regions of DNA (introns) are removed, and the coding regions (exons) are spliced together to form the mature mRNA molecule. Consequently, the original DNA nucleotide sequence, including introns, cannot be determined solely from the amino acid sequence.
Taken together, it is not possible to obtain the exact same DNA nucleotide sequence by working backward from the amino acid sequence of a protein due to the degeneracy of the genetic code and the loss of information during transcription. However, it is possible to infer the most likely DNA nucleotide sequence by considering the known codon-amino acid relationships and the rules of the genetic code.