The code for building proteins is encoded by what feature of DNA?

The code for building proteins is encoded by what feature of DNA?

• A. The sugar backbone
• B. The sequence of nitrogen bases
• C. The double helix shape
• D. The phosphates

Answer: (B)

Protein-building information is stored in the sequence of nitrogen bases in DNA. The order of adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine forms codons—groups of three bases—that specify which amino acids are added during protein synthesis. This information is read first when the DNA is transcribed into mRNA, and then translated by ribosomes to build the protein according to those codons. The sugar-phosphate backbone and the double-helix shape are structural features that support stability and replication, not the instructions themselves, so they don’t encode the protein-coding information.

Protein-building information is stored in the sequence of nitrogen bases in DNA. The order of adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine forms codons—groups of three bases—that specify which amino acids are added during protein synthesis. This information is read first when the DNA is transcribed into mRNA, and then translated by ribosomes to build the protein according to those codons. The sugar-phosphate backbone and the double-helix shape are structural features that support stability and replication, not the instructions themselves, so they don’t encode the protein-coding information.