Science. 1963 May 3;140(3566):477-81. doi: 10.1126/science.140.3566.477.
The triplets of nucleotides which apparently specify the detailed structure of proteins fall into a regular pattern: the 64 combinations of four nucleotides taken three at a time, are resolved into 32 pairs. The second member of each pair is identical with the first, except that in one position a purine is replaced by the other purine or a pyrimidine by the other pyrimidine. Almost all of the reported triplets fit into this pattern, and from it one can predict which amino acids will be found to correspond to the remaining 19 unidentified triplets. This pattern accounts for several of the observations concerning regularities in the data, partially determines the order of the nucleotides in each triplet, and suggests a structural basis for transfer RNA specificity.
显然，决定蛋白质详细结构的三核苷酸成一规则模式：每三个核苷酸一组的 64 种组合，可分解为 32 对。每一对中的第二个核苷酸与第一个相同，只是在一个位置上，一个嘌呤被另一个嘌呤所取代，或一个嘧啶被另一个嘧啶所取代。几乎所有已报告的三核苷酸都符合这一模式，由此可以预测哪些氨基酸将与其余 19 个未确定的三核苷酸相对应。这一模式说明了有关数据规律性的几个观察结果，部分决定了每个三核苷酸中核苷酸的顺序，并为转移 RNA 的特异性提供了结构基础。
