Talk:Start codon

Reference?
"Interestingly when an alternative start codon is used, it gets translated as methionine - even if the codon might normally encode a different amino acid. This is because a separate [tRNA] is used for initiation."?--ScottieB (talk) 18:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Merge
I'm seeing far too many small articles like this - surely it would be better to keep this in Genetic code. Half the article is just explaining background, which is duplicating material already elsewhere, and the rest is hardly enough for a stand-alone article. It certainly isn't so big as to clog up the genetic code article, and there are no other relevant parent topics that would support the existence of a separate article. Richard001 04:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree, its not a standalone concept or topic unlike the other things in the translation template box 129.31.72.52 18:39, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed as well. How do you get that going? —Preceding unsigned comment added by LostLucidity (talk • contribs) 00:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree completely with merging the article. This is a significant, self-contained area in Molecular Genetics, as I can attest from a professional point of view, and is far too extensive to just appear as a few lines in the article on the Genetic Code. If anything, the article should be significantly improved and expanded. I have just fixed the statistics on the usage of AUG, GUG and UUG in E. coli (using the original genome sequence paper as reference) and added a general reference, as well as fixing some minor problems. It still needs more work. AussieBoy (talk) 01:47, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

TAC
This should actually be ATG. You are stating TAC which is the reverse complement. Consider if you have ATG (which truly starts an open reading frame) and then you have it's reverse complement TAC. The polymerase only uses TAC as the template for reading the code, however, the "coding" or "sense" strand is actually the ATG strand. You may confuse people by putting TAC. Hence I changed all the anti-sense strands to the sense strands which is more acurate.

Biochemr2 (talk) 10:34, 3 September 2009 (EDT)

This change actually confused me a lot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.89.80.154 (talk) 19:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Alternative start codons
It is true that different organisms, even eukaryotes, may use slightly different start codons.

The article mentions that Candida albicans uses CAG. If I understood the article then this will also be Methionin. I do not necessarily doubt this, but could more references be added to reinforce that statement? To me this part was new. I knew before that different starting codons are used, but I was unaware that they all will become methionin anyway. 2A02:8388:1641:8380:3AD5:47FF:FE18:CC7F (talk) 18:47, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

In special cases the Amber and Opal STOP codons can encode for amino acids, Pyrrolysine and Selenocystein respectively.
It occurs with a certain encoding gene and/or special tRNA. CutePikachu08 (talk) 16:09, 22 July 2021 (UTC)