MadSci Network: Molecular Biology |
We are having an ongoing debate in our lab concerning two stories about the genesis of the stop codon naming convention of amber, opal, ochre. One story attributes it to eye color mutations in Drosophila. The other, more fanciful, story attributes it to a grad student that offered to patch out a large number of plates if the mutation would be named after his grandmother (whose name happened to be the German for Amber). With some fairly rigorous searching we've come up empty handed. Just short of emailing Abelson or digging up all the original papers, I was wondering if you knew the answer or had a reference that I could refer to? (a reference would be nice in either case). Thanks for your help.
Re: What is the story behind the naming convention of stop codons?
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