Genetic Code

We are given:
Number of amino acids = 96
Number of DNA bases = 12
We need minimum number of bases per codon, i.e., smallest value of such that:
Trial:


So,
Thus, using 2 bases, we can get 144 codons, which is sufficient.
But the question asks for the minimum number of combinations of bases required — i.e., not number of bases per codon, but minimum codon length (x).
Let’s test smaller values:
So, 2 bases per codon are enough, hence the codon length is 2. But since the options given are mismatched, and the question might have misworded “number of combinations” instead of “number of bases,” we consider the actual requirement: We are looking for the smallest such that:
However, the correct interpretation based on options provided is:
Find smallest such that
Therefore, correct codon length = 2 bases ⇒ Answer = (C)
Correction to Options: (C) 2 is correct