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Triplet Code

Topic
  • Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
  • Macromolecules
  • DNA & RNA
  • Genetics
  • Bioinformatics
Resource Type
  • Videos
  • Animations
Level
High School — GeneralHigh School — AP/IBCollege
Duration
00:01:08
Favorited By
10 Users
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Description

This animation describes how many nucleotides encode a single amino acid, which is a key part of the genetic code.

Once the structure of DNA was discovered, the next challenge for scientists was to determine how nucleotide sequences coded for amino acids. As shown in the animation, a set of three nucleotides, a triplet code, is the minimum necessary to encode all 20 amino acids.

Depending on students’ background, it may be helpful to pause the animation at various points to discuss different features.

Details
Key Terms

amino acid, central dogma, codon, DNA, genetic code, nucleotide, protein, RNA, translation

Terms of Use

The resource is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. No rights are granted to use HHMI’s or BioInteractive’s names or logos independent from this Resource or in any derivative works.

Version History
Date Published 02.05.03
Materials
Large (MOV) 4 MB
Large (WMV) 4 MB
Small (MOV) 3 MB
Small (WMV) 3 MB
Transcript (PDF) 11 KB

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