A three-base sequence that provides genetic code information for a particular amino acid.

• A. Anticodon
• B. Exon
• C. Codon
• D. Intron

Answer: (C)

A codon is the three-nucleotide unit in mRNA that specifies which amino acid will be added during protein synthesis. The ribosome reads codons and matches them with tRNA molecules that have the complementary anticodon, delivering the correct amino acid to build the protein. While the tRNA’s anticodon is also three bases long and essential for decoding, the actual code that determines the amino acid is the codon on the mRNA. Exons are the coding portions of a gene that remain in the final mRNA, and introns are noncoding regions removed during processing, so they’re not the three-base code that specifies an amino acid.