Dangerously Thin: a Case Study on the Genetic Code

1. One function of the enzyme CYP2C9 is to help breakdown prescribed drugs in the body. When the enzyme contains a mutation, such as in Henry’s case, the process of breaking down and metabolizing the prescribed drugs is much slower. Thus a person with this sort of mutation might be more likely to overdose due to the fact that the prescribed drugs are not being metabolized fast enough compared to those without the mutation and therefor even normal dosages could have the potential to build in their system. If the body cannot break the prescribed drugs down fast enough, than an overdose situation is likely to occur with negative results for the person consuming the drug.

2. A gene is a segment of a DNA molecule that carries instruction for creating one polypeptide chain (Marieb & Hoehn, 2015 p.99). Polypeptides are chains of amino acids and proteins are made up of one or more polypeptide molecules. Humans have an estimated 25,000 protein encoding genes (Marieb & Hoehn, 2015 p.99). The genetic alphabet is composed of nucleotide bases (A, G, T, and C) and all the information of DNA is found in sequences of these bases. In the case of Henry’s genes, the code needed to produce the enzyme CYP2C9 protein had a mutation. When Henry’s cell was trying to create the amino acid for the enzyme from his genetic code, the 1075th nucleotide has been changed from an adenine (A) to a cytosine (C) and this mutation converts a triple code of ATT to CTT creating a defect in the enzyme resulting in the physical problems that Henry was experiencing.

3. The coding strands hold a code or the same sequence as the mRNA to be built, the only exception being that U in mRNA in place of T (Marieb & Hoehn, 2015 p.102). This mRNA like strand has the sequence that corresponds to the codons that are translated into protein. A template strand on the other hand is refers to the sequence of DNA that is copied during the synthesis of mRNA (Marieb & Hoehn, 2015 p.102).

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