Fisher Information Limits on Genetic Stability, Diversity, and Regulation

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics
• Information Theory

Background:

• Life requires precise yet imperfect genetic information transmission for adaptation and diversity.
• Excessive mutation can lead to fitness degradation (Muller's ratchet) or information loss (error catastrophe).
• Evolutionary regimes shift between high mutation rates during environmental fluctuation and stable states favoring low mutation rates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To model the tension between genetic accuracy and error using a Fisher Information framework.
• To identify an information-geometric limit for genetic stability.
• To apply this framework to understand cancer as an informational transition and cancer cell strategies.

Main Methods:

• Modeling genetic inheritance as a noisy two-state channel using Fisher Information.
• Analyzing the nontrivial eigenvalue of the channel's transition operator.
• Applying the framework to the context of carcinogenesis and tumor microenvironment.

Main Results:

• An instability boundary at p(1-p) = 1/9 was identified, beyond which selection cannot maintain informational stability.
• This boundary coincides with limits in quantum coherence and thermodynamics, suggesting a universal information-geometric limit.
• Cancer is framed as a shift from host-regulated to self-proliferative informational regimes.

Conclusions:

• Genetic stability, regulatory fidelity, and structural order share a common information-geometric limit.
• Cancer cells may employ niche construction by creating a mutagenic microenvironment to destabilize host cells and immune responses.
• The framework provides testable predictions for cancer biology and immune evasion.