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Entropy of never born protein sequences
Grzegorz Szoniec1, Maciej J Ogorzalek
1Information Technology Department, Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science, Jagiellonian University, 4 Reymonta Street, Cracow, 30-059 Poland.
Springerplus
|June 11, 2013
Summary
Natural and theoretical Never Born proteins exhibit similar sequence randomness, suggesting evolutionary protein selection may be largely random. Natural proteins lack unique information-theoretic features compared to artificial sequences.
Area of Science:
- Bioinformatics
- Evolutionary Biology
- Information Theory
Background:
- Investigates the evolutionary selection of proteins, a process whose determinants remain unclear.
- Introduces the concept of 'Never Born' proteins, theoretical sequences absent in nature.
- Applies information theory to compare natural and Never Born proteins based on information content.
Observation:
- Analyzes sequence information content using block and relative entropies.
- Compares the randomness of natural protein sequences with artificially generated Never Born protein sequences.
Findings:
- Both natural and Never Born proteins display high sequence randomness.
- Artificially generated Never Born protein sequences are as random as natural ones.
- No significant unique information-theoretic features distinguish natural proteins.
Implications:
- Suggests that protein evolution and selection might be a non-deterministic, random process.
- Challenges the notion of unique, inherent information-theoretic properties in natural proteins.
- Provides a novel perspective on protein sequence space and evolutionary constraints.
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