Molecular Biology 5th Edition by Robert Weaver

Exercise 1

Here is the amino acid sequence of part of a hypothetical gene you want to clone:
Pro-Arg-Tyr-Met-Cys-Trp-Ile-Leu-Met-Ser
a. What sequence of five amino acids would give a 14-mer probe with the least degeneracy for probing a library to find your gene of interest Notice that you do not use the last base in the fifth codon because of its degeneracy.
b. How many different 14-mers would you have to make in order to be sure that your probe matches the corresponding sequence in your cloned gene perfectly
c. If you started your probe one amino acid to the left of the one you chose in (a), how many different 14-mers would you have to make Use the genetic code to determine degeneracy.