Texas A&M University (TAMU) BIOL111 Introductory Biology I Exam 3 Practice Exam

The part of the nucleotide sequence that codes for an amino acid is the codon. Codons are sequences of three nucleotides in mRNA that specify a particular amino acid during protein synthesis. Each codon corresponds to one of the 20 standard amino acids or serves as a signal to stop the translation process.

In this context, the codon plays a crucial role in the genetic code by translating genetic information into functional proteins. The accuracy of this process is vital, as it determines the sequence of amino acids that will eventually fold into a specific protein.

In contrast, anticodons are found in tRNA and complement the codons during translation but do not themselves code for amino acids. Exons are the coding regions of a gene that are expressed, but they do not specifically refer to a nucleotide sequence coding for a single amino acid; rather, they can be composed of multiple codons. Introns are non-coding segments found within genes that are spliced out during RNA processing and also do not code for amino acids.