What's the difference between CTT and TTA?

[Stripe]

Hopefully this is a pretty simple question, but I'm more a rock guy...

CTT and TTA can both be used to make leucine. So to make leucine there is no difference to an organism's DNA whether it has CTT or TTA in the right place. But might the difference between CTT and TTA have other effects not related to the production of leucine?

[canalon]

CTT and TTA do not make leucine, they mark the site where leu should be integrated in a protein.
The only major difference between codons is the codon biases in different organism, i.e. different organisms have different concentrations of each of the tRNA and some synonymous codons might not be translated as quickly, or at all, if one is used instead of the other.

[Stripe]

CTT and TTA do not make leucine, they mark the site where leu should be integrated in a protein.
The only major difference between codons is the codon biases in different organism, i.e. different organisms have different concentrations of each of the tRNA and some synonymous codons might not be translated as quickly, or at all, if one is used instead of the other.

Hmm .. OK.

What does rate of translation (or suppression) do that is useful?

[jonmoulton]

The rate of translation affects attenuation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuator_%28genetics%29

[Stripe]

Thanks for the help, guys.