Codon
A sequence of three nucleotides that codes for a specific amino acid during protein synthesis. The genetic code uses 64 codons to specify 20 amino acids plus stop signals.
Used in the Books
This term appears in 2 chapters:
"Rather, it claims that most variation at the DNA sequence level has no fitness consequence. A mutation that changes a codon from CUU to CUC still codes for leucine - the protein sequence is unchanged, so the mutation is truly neutral."
"...ngency can prevent convergence on optimal solutions. Biology faces analogous constraints: the genetic code (which amino acids correspond to which DNA codons) is suboptimal but universal, because changing it would require coordinating changes across the entire genome - effectively impossible. **Case 3: Th..."
Biological Context
Codons are the words of the genetic language. Most amino acids have multiple codons (redundancy). The genetic code is nearly universal across all life—evidence of common ancestry.
Business Application
Business codons: the standardized units that encode organizational instructions. Job codes, product SKUs, and process identifiers are business codons.