Is the termination codon included as part of the coding region of a gene or considered non-coding?

Question

Is the termination codon included as part of the coding region of a gene or considered non-coding?

Answer 1

Do you consider a period or question mark part of a sentence?  Without that mark of termination, the sentence is incomplete.  

Answer 2

This is one of those funny detail questions.  It's not coding for an amino acid, so does it count?  When I mark a gene I like to mark the end of the gene, though I have seen it done the other way.  But, as a proper reference I looked at at NCBI, the National Center for Biotechnology Information.  I see that they use the termination codon as part of the coding sequence.  To me that makes sense since the termination codon is part of that chart of amino acids.

Answer 3

I believe it is noncoding. That's what it looks like in the figure in my textbook. Unfortunately, I can't find that figure anywhere online.

Answer 4

It is non-coding, but this does require some explanation.

The three stop codons are transcribed into complementary mRNA codons during TRANSCRIPTION.

However, during TRANSLATION, none of these codons are translated into an amino acid.  They merely signal the end of translation. (Instead of the relevant tRNA, a protein called "release factor" binds to the stop codon, and causes the protein to be released.)

Hope that helps!