Monday, April 11, 2016

Recent developments in microorganism studies has suggested that the genetic codes flexibility may be greater than previously thought. A new study by researchers from the U.S Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) and Yale University has discovered that the codon for the amino acid selenocysteine is not coherent across all organisms. Scientists found that in some microorganisms, the three-letter codon UGA signals for the translation of the amino acid selenocysteine. This is of major significance because UGA is among three codons that normally signal the termination of protein construction.













Starting from the four innermost letters and working to the outermost ring, this table shows shows which three-letter base sequence or codon encodes which amino acid. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, public domain image


Researchers scanned approximately 6.4 trillion bases of metagenomic sequence and 25,000 microbial genomes in the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the DOE JGI's Integrated Microbial Genomes data management system. Based on two 2014 publications in the journal Science, they expected to find variations in microorganisms genetic vocabulary within nature. The team discovered several species that identify stop codons UGA, UAG and UAA, as well as ten sense codons, that are variants for selenocysteine.

This finding is of major significance because it is opening geneticist's minds to the possibility of a greater network of genetic schemes. While our knowledge of genetics has grown tremendously over the past couple of decades, there remains an abundance of questions unanswered about the intricacies between reading the genetic code and applying it. The genetic variation in microorganisms is far greater than in animal species and the further study of these microorganisms may prove useful to fill in the missing gaps of our current genetic knowledge.


1 comment:

  1. There seems to be a lot of uncertainties in genetics. Does this mean that there are 21 amino acids now?

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