Certified in Public Health (CPH) Practice Exam

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How many bases make up a codon?

The correct answer is: 3

A codon is made up of three bases, which are the fundamental units of genetic code in DNA and RNA. Each codon corresponds to a specific amino acid or a stop signal during the process of translation, where the genetic information is used to synthesize proteins. This triplet nature of codons is crucial because it allows for the encoding of the 20 standard amino acids used to build proteins. The significance of having three bases in a codon lies in the efficiency and stability of genetic encoding. With three bases, the potential combinations can lead to 64 different codons (given by the formula 4^3, as there are four nucleotide bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine or uracil in RNA). This redundancy provides a safeguard against mutations, as multiple codons can encode the same amino acid, thus ensuring that protein synthesis can still occur even when changes in the DNA occur. While four may represent the number of distinct nucleotide bases and twenty the number of amino acids, neither defines the structure of a codon, which is specifically composed of a sequence of three bases.