A polypeptide contains 36 amino acids. How many nucleotides would be found in the mRNA for this polypeptide?

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All right. Hello everyone. So this question says that a scientist is investigating a gene that codes for a polypeptide made up of 150 amino acids. How many nucleotides are included in the MRN A sequence that codes for this polypeptide? So let's take this step by step. First of all, recall that during the process of translation, one coon found within the MRN A codes for one amino acid. And just so we're clear here, a coon refers to a triplet of nucleotides. So each coon contains three RN A nucleotides and together they code for one amino acid. So this is the math that we're going to need to find the number of nucleotides necessary for this Mrna sequence. So if we have 150 different amino acids, we know for a fact that each one must have been coded for by one coon which contains three nucleotides. So that would be 150 multiplied by three, which equals 450 nucleotides. And this is the part that can be very tricky because this is not the end of the question. So 450 nucleotides would actually be incorrect. And the reason for this is because we have to account for the entirety of the MRN A sequence. The MRN A sequence does contain portions that code for amino acids, of course. But we cannot forget the start and stop codons that are also present in Mrna. So to the number of nucleotides obtained for amino acids, we have to add six because that's three nucleotides for the start coon and three more for the stop codon. So 450 nucleotides added to or adding six to that equals 456 nucleotides, which is your true answer and there you have it. So with that being said, thank you so very much for watching and I hope you found this helpful.

A polypeptide contains 36 amino acids. How many nucleotides would be found in the mRNA for this polypeptide?

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Key Concepts

Amino Acids and Polypeptides

mRNA and Codons

Nucleotide Calculation