UNL Team's Discovery Expands Understanding of Genetic Code

USAgNet.com"A discovery by University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers expands understanding of the genetic code, and may help revise a tenet of this universal language of life.

In cells, the genetic code essentially provides instructions for creating proteins, the basic structural molecules of life. The code includes a series of unique three-letter 'code words,' called codons. These genetic passwords dictate insertion of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. While codons may change to code for different amino acids in different organisms, a long-held precept of the genetic code is that one codon provides the password only for one amino acid in an organism.

Not always, UNL scientists discovered."