Imagine That You and Your Colleagues Are Working in a Lab

question 119

Essay

Imagine that you and your colleagues are working in a lab to develop a protein synthesis system for a new type of synthetic cell. During your brainstorming sessions, you propose that polycistronic mRNA would be much more useful than mRNA that is only translated into one protein. This would allow for multiple proteins necessary for a particular function to be translated together. One of your colleagues says that is a good idea, but if you decide to go with polycistronic mRNA, you'd better make sure to use a prokaryotic translation system. Why might it be problematic to use a eukaryotic translation system with polycistronic mRNA?
A)Introns would always prevent translation of the mRNA.
B)Eukaryotic ribosomes initiate translation by binding to the 5-cap, which is only at the end of the mRNA.
C)Prokaryotic ribosomes do not detach from mRNA when they reach a stop codon.
D)Eukaryotic start and stop codons are different from prokaryotic start and stop codons.

• A)Introns would always prevent translation of the mRNA.
• B)Eukaryotic ribosomes initiate translation by binding to the 5  -cap, which is only at the end of the mRNA.
• C)Prokaryotic ribosomes do not detach from mRNA when they reach a stop codon.
• D)Eukaryotic start and stop codons are different from prokaryotic start and stop codons.