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Genetic code origin: are the pathways of type Glu-tRNA(Gln) --> Gln-tRNA(Gln) molecular fossils or not?
1International Institute of Genetics and Biophysics, CNR, Via G. Marconi 10, 80125 Naples, Italy. diguilio@iigb.na.cnr.it
Abstract:
A logical-evolutionary analysis is conducted to clarify whether or not pathways of type Glu-tRNA(Gln) --> Gln-tRNA(Gln) are molecular fossils of the mechanism that gave rise to the evolutionary organization of the genetic code. The result of this analysis is that these pathways are most likely a manifestation of this mechanism. This provides strong evidence in favor of the coevolution theory of genetic code origin, as this theory is based on the amino acid biosynthetic transformation taking place on tRNA-like molecules which imprinted the genetic code structuring. Comments on the different interpretations of these pathways found in the literature are also provided.