A four-column theory for the origin of the genetic code: tracing the evolutionary pathways that gave rise to an optimized code.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The arrangement of the amino acids in the genetic code is such that neighbouring codons are assigned to amino acids with similar physical properties. Hence, the effects of translational error are minimized with respect to randomly reshuffled codes. Further inspection reveals that it is amino acids in the same column of the code (i.e. same second base) that are similar, whereas those in the same row show no particular similarity. We propose a 'four-column' theory for the origin of the code that explains how the action of selection during the build-up of the code leads to a final code that has the observed properties.

Results

The theory makes the following propositions. (i) The earliest amino acids in the code were those that are easiest to synthesize non-biological

SUBMITTER: Higgs PG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2689856 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature