What is the optimum size for the genetic alphabet?
Open accessAbstract
An important question in biology is why the genetic alphabet is made of just two base pairs (G.C and A.T). This is particularly interesting because of the recent demonstration [Piccirilli, J. A., Krauch, T., Moroney, S. E. & Benner, S. A. (1990) Nature (London) 343, 33-37] that the alphabet can in principle be larger. It is possible to explain the size of the present genetic alphabet as a frozen character state that was an evolutionary optimum in an RNA world when nucleic acids functioned both for storing genetic information and for expressing information as enzymatically active RNA molecules--i.e., ribozymes. A previous model [Szathmáry, E. (1991) Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. B 245, 91-99] has described the principle of this approach. The present paper confirms and extends these results by showing explicitly the ways in which copying fidelity and metabolic efficiency change with the size of the genetic alphabet.
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A four-base system is more realistic and its alphabet size has been argued to be optimal.
“However, because a four-base system would be more realistic and it has been argued that this alphabet size is optimal (59), we also investigated the four-base system to the extent that it was computationally tractable.”
From Prebiotically plausible mechanisms increase compositional diversity of nucleic acid sequences (2012) · cites this paper as [59]
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Prebiotically plausible mechanisms increase compositional diversity of nucleic acid sequences
Derr, J., Manapat, M. L., Rajamani, S., Leu, K., Xulvi-Brunet, R., Joseph, I., Nowak, M. A., & Chen, I. A. (2012) · Nucleic Acids Research · doi:10.1093/nar/gks065 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
Jadhav, V. R., & Yarus, M. (2002) · Biochimie · doi:10.1016/s0300-9084(02)01404-9 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
- Authors
- Szathmáry, E.
- Affiliations
- National Institute for Medical Research (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Szathmáry, E
- ORCID
- Szathmáry, E
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 1992-04
- Volume
- 89
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 2614-2618
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC48712
- OpenAlex
- W2134987964
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 2.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Keywords
- RNA world, ribozymes, metabolic efficiency, genetic information storage
- MeSH terms
- Origin of Life, Biological Evolution, Genetic Code, Hydrogen Bonding, Models, Theoretical, RNA, Thermodynamics, RNA, Catalytic
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