A certain bacterial mRNA is known to represent only one gene and to contain about 800 nucleotides.If you assume that the average amino acid residue contributes 110 to the peptide molecular weight,the largest polypeptide that this mRNA could code for would have a molecular weight of about:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

To calculate the maximum molecular weight of the polypeptide that the mRNA can code for, we need to divide its total nucleotide length (800) by 3, to find the number of codons that it can contain. This gives us 266 codons. Since each codon encodes for one amino acid residue, we can assume that the polypeptide would contain approximately 266 amino acid residues. Multiplying this number by the average molecular weight of an amino acid residue (110) gives us an estimated maximum molecular weight of around 29,260. However, we also need to factor in the molecular weight of water molecules that are released during peptide bond formation between successive amino acids. This increases the average molecular weight per residue to around 128. Therefore, the maximum molecular weight of the polypeptide that the mRNA can code for is approximately 34,048 (266 x 128), which is closest to option C - 30,000.

A Certain Bacterial MRNA Is Known to Represent Only One