Answer:
If an mRNA strand is 6399 nucleotides long, it will code for 2132 amino acids, as the last triplet is the terminating codon.
Explanation:
Codons are found in the RNA chain and are made up of nucleotides trios, whose specific sequence determines the genetic code.
There are 4 nitrogenous bases in RNA - Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Uracil - which when combined in trios give rise to 64 possible codon combinations that code for 20 amino acids, so an amino acid can be formed by more than one codon.
Determining how many amino acids are encoded according to the amount of nucleotides in the mRNA would be as easy as <u>dividing the number of nucleotids in the chain by 3</u>, but considering that the last codon is not taken into account, since it is the termination codon.
- Amino acids = (amount of nitrogenous bases in mRNA / 3) - 1
- Amino acids = (6399 / 3) - 1
- Amino acids = 2133 - 1 = 2132
