Chemistry and Physics Faculty Articles
Title
A Binary Representation of the Genetic Code
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-2017
Publication Title
BioSystems
Keywords
DNA, Genetic Code, Binary, Mutations, Evolution
ISSN
1872-8324
Volume
155
First Page
10
Last Page
19
Abstract
This article introduces a novel binary representation of the canonical genetic code based on both the structural similarities of the nucleotides, as well as the physicochemical properties of the encoded amino acids. Each of the four mRNA bases is assigned a unique 2-bit identifier, so that the 64 triplet codons are each indexed by a 6-bit label. The ordering of the bits reflects the hierarchical organization manifested by the DNA replication/repair and tRNA translation systems. In this system, transition and transversion mutations are naturally expressed as binary operations, and the severities of the different point mutations can be analyzed. Using a principal component analysis, it is shown that the physicochemical properties of amino acids related to protein folding also correlate with certain bit positions of their respective labels. Thus, the likelihood for a point mutation to be conservative, and less likely to cause a change in protein functionality, can be estimated.
NSUWorks Citation
Nemzer, L. R. (2017). A Binary Representation of the Genetic Code. BioSystems, 155, 10 - 19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2017.03.001. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cnso_chemphys_facarticles/135
DOI
10.1016/j.biosystems.2017.03.001
