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Name: Alice O.
Status: Student
Age: 15
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: August 2003
Question:
What are start and stop codons?


Replies:
Dear Alice,

The roles of the start & stop codons in initiating & terminating protein synthesis, respectively, during the process of translating messenger RNA codons into the sequence of amino acids comprising proteins is nicely described in the section of Kimball's Biology Pages Online on "The Steps of Translation":

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/Translation.html#steps

I hope that this explanation is helpful for you,

Jeff Buzby, Ph.D.
CHOC Research Institute


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