Why is it possible for an amino acid to be specified by more than one kind of codon?

1 Answer
Mandira P.
Jul 17, 2016

There are 20 amino acids but 64 possible codons: of which three are nonsense. Thus 61 codons are available to code for 20 amino acids, which means for one amino acid more than one codon is available: this is called degeneracy of genetic code .

Explanation:

Multiple codons are there to code for one amino acid and generally these codons vary at the third base. For example there are four codons for amino acid Valine: these are

  • GUU
  • GUC
  • GUA
  • GUG
Related questions
Impact of this question
6882 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License