System whereby the nucleotide triplets in DNA and RNA contain the information for synthesizing proteins from the 20 amino acids (Francis Crick, 1961) is known as what?

System whereby the nucleotide triplets in DNA and RNA contain the information for synthesizing proteins from the 20 amino acids (Francis Crick, 1961) is known as what?

• A. Genetic code
• B. Codon
• C. Polypeptide
• D. Amino acids

Answer: (A)

This is about the genetic code—the mapping that translates nucleotide triplets into amino acids during protein synthesis. Each three-nucleotide unit, a codon, specifies a particular amino acid (or a signal to stop) when information flows from DNA to RNA and into a polypeptide. Francis Crick and colleagues helped establish this idea in 1961, showing that the sequence of codons in the genetic material determines the sequence of amino acids in a protein. The code is nearly universal and has some redundancy: multiple codons can encode the same amino acid, and there are specific start and stop signals that regulate where translation begins and ends. The other terms—codon, polypeptide, and amino acids—are parts of the process (a codon is a triplet unit, a polypeptide is the chain of amino acids, and amino acids are the building blocks themselves), but the system that governs how triplets map to amino acids is the genetic code.

This is about the genetic code—the mapping that translates nucleotide triplets into amino acids during protein synthesis. Each three-nucleotide unit, a codon, specifies a particular amino acid (or a signal to stop) when information flows from DNA to RNA and into a polypeptide. Francis Crick and colleagues helped establish this idea in 1961, showing that the sequence of codons in the genetic material determines the sequence of amino acids in a protein. The code is nearly universal and has some redundancy: multiple codons can encode the same amino acid, and there are specific start and stop signals that regulate where translation begins and ends. The other terms—codon, polypeptide, and amino acids—are parts of the process (a codon is a triplet unit, a polypeptide is the chain of amino acids, and amino acids are the building blocks themselves), but the system that governs how triplets map to amino acids is the genetic code.