What does the concept of degeneracy in the genetic code imply?

The concept of degeneracy in the genetic code indicates that multiple codons can encode the same amino acid. This allows for flexibility and resilience in the genetic code, meaning that if a mutation occurs in a codon, it may still code for the same amino acid due to this redundancy.

The correct answer highlights that multiple species of tRNA exist for most amino acids. This is significant because, while there may be several codons encoding a single amino acid, there are often several different tRNA molecules that can recognize these codons during the process of translation. This abundance of tRNA species is crucial for efficient protein synthesis and helps to prevent errors during translation, ensuring that the correct amino acids are incorporated into the growing polypeptide chain despite potential variations in the mRNA sequence.

In the context of the relationships between codons and amino acids, if a certain codon is changed but remains recognized by a different tRNA due to the degeneracy of the code, the resulting protein may still be correctly assembled, illustrating how this feature of the genetic code contributes to the robustness of protein synthesis.