RNA世界的最佳字母表。
Optimal alphabets for an RNA world.
作者信息
Gardner Paul P, Holland Barbara R, Moulton Vincent, Hendy Mike, Penny David
机构信息
Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, PB 11 222, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
出版信息
Proc Biol Sci. 2003 Jun 7;270(1520):1177-82. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2355.
Experiments have shown that the canonical AUCG genetic alphabet is not the only possible nucleotide alphabet. In this work we address the question 'is the canonical alphabet optimal?' We make the assumption that the genetic alphabet was determined in the RNA world. Computational tools are used to infer the RNA secondary structure (shape) from a given RNA sequence, and statistics from RNA shapes are gathered with respect to alphabet size. Then, simulations based upon the replication and selection of fixed-sized RNA populations are used to investigate the effect of alternative alphabets upon RNA's ability to step through a fitness landscape. These results show that for a low copy fidelity the canonical alphabet is fitter than two-, six- and eight-letter alphabets. In higher copy-fidelity experiments, six-letter alphabets outperform the four-letter alphabets, suggesting that the canonical alphabet is indeed a relic of the RNA world.
实验表明，标准的AUCG遗传字母表并非唯一可能的核苷酸字母表。在这项工作中，我们探讨“标准字母表是否最优？”这一问题。我们假设遗传字母表是在RNA世界中确定的。使用计算工具从给定的RNA序列推断RNA二级结构（形状），并收集关于字母表大小的RNA形状统计数据。然后，基于固定大小RNA群体的复制和选择进行模拟，以研究替代字母表对RNA穿越适应度景观能力的影响。这些结果表明，对于低复制保真度，标准字母表比二字母表、六字母表和八字母表更具适应性。在更高复制保真度的实验中，六字母表优于四字母表，这表明标准字母表确实是RNA世界的遗留物。
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