For decades, scientists working with genetic material have labored with a few basic rules in mind. To start, DNA is transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA), and mRNA is translated into proteins, which ...

One of modern biologists' most ambitious goals is to learn how to expand or otherwise modify the genetic code of life on Earth, in order to make new, artificial life forms. Part of the motivation for ...

There are many possible three-letter genetic codes that could adequately encode protein sequences, but what about the need to encode higher-order information on binding and splicing sites? New ...

A team at UT Southwestern Medical Center has identified a structural trick that lets viruses translate their genetic code inside human cells, even when that code is riddled with “bad” codons the host ...

Somewhere in a sample of ordinary pond water, a single-celled organism has been quietly breaking one of biology’s most fundamental rules. Condylostoma magnum, a free-living ciliate barely visible to ...

Superimposed on the genetic sequences coding for amino acids is a second genetic code. This second genetic code, which makes use of dual-use codons, or duons, specifies how genes are controlled. The ...

Our genes are written in long strings of three-letter units composed of four different nucleotides. These units - or codons - specify one of many amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Multiple ...

Synonymous codons may encode the same amino acid, but host cells do not treat them as interchangeable. Codon preferences vary across species, so a sequence optimized for one organism can express ...

A central tenet of biology may need updating given new measurements of start codons. For decades, scientists working with genetic material have labored with a few basic rules in mind. To start, DNA is ...