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# System prepended metadata

title: Homework 7

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# Homework 7

**1. Name a gene that has a lot of these premature stop codon variants.**

The nucleocapsid protein encoding gene (NC)
![](https://i.imgur.com/UqbjOK5.png =300x)
Figure 1. last section of SARS-CoV-2 mRNAs alignment using UCSC Genome Browser tool (http://genome.ucsc.edu). The alignment is highlited in light blue color. The black bars represent the stop codons in variants which seems higher in the NC gene. 

**2. Provide a hypothesis about why this gene has more premature stop codon variants than other genes in the genome.**


Since the nucleocapsid is a structural protein it might play a role in the immunity generated in the host and that can lead a pressure of selection of certain strains generating variants.


