What does the sentence say now?
Using this code, align the beads corresponding to the appropriate letter to write the following sentence (don’t forget start, space and stop):
a) The mouse likes most cheese
b) How many beads did you use?
There are multiple ways your cells can read a sequence of DNA and build slightly different proteins from the same strand. We will not go through the process here, but as an illustration of this “alternate splicing”, remove codons (beads) 52 – 66 from your sentence above.
c) What does the sentence say now? (re-write the entire sentence)
Mutations are simply changes in the sequence of nucleotides. There are three ways this occurs:
1. Change a nucleotide(s)
2. Remove a nucleotide(s)
3. Add a nucleotide(s)
3. Using the sentence The mouse likes most cheese.:
a. Change the 24th bead to a different color. What letter was affected: Re-write the sentence (in codons): Does the new sentence make sense? If not, write the words that still make sense (using the code):
b. Replace the 24th bead and remove the 20th bead (remember what was there). What letter was affected: Re-write the sentence (in codons): Does the new sentence make sense? If not, write the part that does make sense (using the code):
c. Replace the 20th bead and add one between bead numbers 50 and 51. What was affected: Re-write the sentence (in codons): Does the new sentence make sense? If not, write the part that does make sense (using the code):
d. In 3.a (above) you mutated one letter. What role do you think the redundancy of the genetic code plays in this type of change?
e. Based on your observations, why do you suppose the mutations we made in 3.b and 3.c are called frame shift mutations?
f. Which mutations do you suspect have the greatest consequence? Why?