Gene F of Bacteriophage X174. Correlation of Nucleotide Sequences from the DNA and Amino Acid Sequences from the Gene Product

Application of three different methods to obtain nucleotide sequences from X174 DNA has yielded a continuous sequence of 281 nucleotides and partial sequences totalling another 263 nucleotides from adjoining regions. Simultaneous work on amino acid sequences of X174 coat proteins showed that these nucleotide sequences are part of the F gene, coding for the largest coat protein of the bacteriophage. A total of 136 codons has been identified, of which 56% have thymine as the base in the third position of the coding triplet.