5 ms·
Might error-correction play a role? Having a lightly inefficient base 4 system might provide capacity for the surplus error correcting code information capacity
by go_elmo 3y ago
Might error-correction play a role? Having a lightly inefficient base 4 system might provide capacity for the surplus error correcting code information capacity?
- Faaak 3y agoOne mutation in a base pair can lead a totally different amino acid (c.f the genetic code), so I doubt it ?
- go_elmo 3y agoTrue, iff the error persists correction cycles which are present, how exactly they work / if theyre comparable with eccs I dont know.
- toufka 3y agoBUT, if you look at the codon table, precisely because it's base-4 and not base-3, many base flips are silent when coded. By using base-4, there's enough space to permit lossiness of the coding itself - given the number of amino acids and the 3-NT encoding. So you really aren't optimizing JUST for nucleotide encoding, but you're also optimizing in concert with 3-nt/AA, and 20AA codes. So if you have to optimize for information density and fidelity, given X-nucleotides, Y nucleotides/AA, and Z AAs, and sample as much chemical and physical diversity in those AAs life has settled upon: X=4, Y=3, Z=20. If we went with X=3, you might need Y=4 to get the same kind of fidelity, but that cranks up your energy costs by 30% (from 3 to 4 NT per AA).
- icoder 3y agoDNA mostly relies on the fact that there's 2 strands that are (logically speaking) a mirror copy of each other (a C is paired with a G and vice versa, an A to a T and vice versa), it's like RAID 3 with only 2 disks (one being parity). Apart from repairing structural damage such as missing bonds, the cell can even repair missing bases or non-straight breaks without loss. This mechanism is also used for replication: the entire strand is split and each half is completed with its mirror counterpart.