This phenomenon is described by namesake “tables” in the Kazusa DNA Research Institute’s CUTG database and George Washington University’s HIVE-CUTs database. For 10 points each:
[10h] The “chips” tool in EMBOSS calculates the Nc statistic to measure this phenomenon for a gene that is also measured by an “adaptation index” that equals [read slowly] the product of ratios of observed frequencies to maximal frequencies, all to the power of one over a measure of length.
ANSWER: codon usage bias [prompt on usage bias; prompt on codon usage by asking “what feature of codon usage?”] (The statistics are effective number of codons and codon adaptation index, respectively.)
[10m] Recording codon usage requires determining this region of the genome from among six choices for a given sequence. These regions that extend from a start codon to a stop codon are detected by a namesake “Finder” tool.
ANSWER: open reading frames [or ORFs; accept ORF Finder]
[10e] Codon usage bias exists due to this phenomenon by which multiple codons code for the same amino acid.
ANSWER: codon degeneracy [or codon redundancy]
<David Bass, Biology>