You are a scientist working on characterizing marine microbes that have a major role in the global nitrogen cycle. You finally culture the bacteria you are interested in and find it can grow at twice the rate that you expected, and you suspect it can make proteins more quickly than other bacteria. You want to better characterize genes involved in translation, particularly the enzymatic component of the ribosome. To do that, you must sequence which gene(s) involved in translation

The correct answer would be - the 16S rRNA gene.

Explanation:

16S ribosomal RNA is a small subunit of ribosomes found in prokaryotic cells such as microbes. It is coded by the 16S rRNA gene that is used in constructing phylogenies again due to the slow rate of evolution.

This gene is suggested to be used as a molecular clock that is more reliable as it has sequences that show similar functionalities in distantly related bacterial lineages. It is the gene that produces protein more quickly than other bacteria.