Translate RNA sequences into proteins.
RNA can be broken into three nucleotide sequences called codons, and then translated to a polypeptide like so:
RNA: "AUGUUUUCU" => translates to
Codons: "AUG", "UUU", "UCU"
=> which become a polypeptide with the following sequence =>
Protein: "Methionine", "Phenylalanine", "Serine"
There are 64 codons which in turn correspond to 20 amino acids; however, all of the codon sequences and resulting amino acids are not important in this exercise. If it works for one codon, the program should work for all of them. However, feel free to expand the list in the test suite to include them all.
There are also three terminating codons (also known as 'STOP' codons); if any of these codons are encountered (by the ribosome), all translation ends and the protein is terminated.
All subsequent codons after are ignored, like this:
RNA: "AUGUUUUCUUAAAUG" =>
Codons: "AUG", "UUU", "UCU", "UAA", "AUG" =>
Protein: "Methionine", "Phenylalanine", "Serine"
Note the stop codon "UAA" terminates the translation and the final methionine is not translated into the protein sequence.
Below are the codons and resulting Amino Acids needed for the exercise.
| Codon | Protein |
|---|---|
| AUG | Methionine |
| UUU, UUC | Phenylalanine |
| UUA, UUG | Leucine |
| UCU, UCC, UCA, UCG | Serine |
| UAU, UAC | Tyrosine |
| UGU, UGC | Cysteine |
| UGG | Tryptophan |
| UAA, UAG, UGA | STOP |
Learn more about protein translation on Wikipedia
Sometimes it is necessary to raise an exception. When you do this, you should include a meaningful error message to indicate what the source of the error is. This makes your code more readable and helps significantly with debugging. Not every exercise will require you to raise an exception, but for those that do, the tests will only pass if you include a message.
To raise a message with an exception, just write it as an argument to the exception type. For example, instead of
raise Exception, you should write:
raise Exception("Meaningful message indicating the source of the error")To run the tests, run the appropriate command below (why they are different):
- Python 2.7:
py.test protein_translation_test.py - Python 3.4+:
pytest protein_translation_test.py
Alternatively, you can tell Python to run the pytest module (allowing the same command to be used regardless of Python version):
python -m pytest protein_translation_test.py
-v: enable verbose output-x: stop running tests on first failure--ff: run failures from previous test before running other test cases
For other options, see python -m pytest -h
Note that, when trying to submit an exercise, make sure the solution is in the $EXERCISM_WORKSPACE/python/protein-translation directory.
You can find your Exercism workspace by running exercism debug and looking for the line that starts with Workspace.
For more detailed information about running tests, code style and linting, please see Running the Tests.
Tyler Long
It's possible to submit an incomplete solution so you can see how others have completed the exercise.