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Carbon - the first frontier of information processing.

Apoorva Patel1

  • 1Centre for Theoretical Studies and Supercomputer Education and Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India. adpatel@cts.iisc.ernet.in

Journal of Biosciences
|June 29, 2002
PubMed
Summary

Carbon is the optimal molecular building block for encoding structural information, forming the basis of proteins in living organisms. This suggests a primitive genetic code preceded the current one.

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Area of Science:

  • Biochemistry
  • Molecular Biology
  • Information Theory

Background:

  • Information encoding relies on aperiodic chains of building blocks, with digital computers using bits.
  • The optimal building blocks for encoding structural information are dependent on the information's nature.
  • Conventional arithmetic uses addition/multiplication; structural encoding may use translation/rotation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine the optimal molecular building blocks for encoding discretized structural information.
  • To analyze the structural language of proteins and its evolutionary implications.
  • To investigate the historical development of the genetic code.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of structural information encoding using translation and rotation operations.
  • Examination of polypeptide chain structures and protein functions.
  • Inference of evolutionary pathways for the genetic code based on amino acid properties.

Main Results:

  • Carbon is identified as the optimal molecular component for encoding structural information at the molecular level.
  • Proteins utilize a versatile structural language of 20 building blocks (amino acids) for diverse functions.
  • Evidence suggests a primitive genetic code, using two nucleotide bases to code for 10 amino acids, preceded the current triplet code.

Conclusions:

  • Carbon's unique properties make it ideal for encoding structural information in biological systems.
  • The 20 amino acid system in proteins represents an efficient and versatile biological information language.
  • Evolutionary analysis of the genetic code points to a simpler, earlier system.

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