Did Khorana's work have limitations?
While our early work definitively established the triplet nature of the codon and assigned many specific codon-amino acid correspondences, the genetic code itself is remarkably universal. However, the initial deciphering was an arduous process, relying on limited starting materials and sophisticated chemical techniques of the time. The full complexity of post-transcriptional modifications and regulatory sequences was not immediately apparent. Furthermore, the translation process involves intricate protein factors and ribosomal structures, which were subjects of ongoing research by many groups. Our focus was on the fundamental chemical rules of information transfer. The vastness of the genome and its regulatory mechanisms were yet to be fully explored.
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