Most amino acids have more than one codon coding for them. This is known as which term?

• A. Transcription
• B. Degeneracy
• C. Translation
• D. Mutation

Answer: (B)

Degeneracy of the genetic code describes the redundancy that many amino acids are encoded by more than one codon. Because there are 64 possible codons but only about 20 amino acids (plus stop signals), several amino acids share codons. For example, leucine can be coded by six different codons, and glycine by four. The wobble at the third nucleotide in a codon helps tRNAs recognize these multiple codons, so a single amino acid can be specified by different sequences without changing the protein. This is distinct from transcription (making RNA from DNA), translation (building protein from mRNA), or mutation (a change in the DNA sequence).