Department of Physics, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.
J Theor Biol. 2009 Apr 7;257(3):345-58. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2008.12.030. Epub 2009 Jan 4.
The information stored in the genome of an organism has long been thought of in computational terms as a kind of codescript for the construction, operation and control of the system in which it is found. However, genomic sequence information can be interpreted as biological instructions and executed as a genetic codescript only by a suitably prepared cell with which the program is in proper registration. We enquire into the character of the evolutionary process that generates physical systems capable of interpreting, in increasingly elaborate ways, the genetic information they contain. The principle of Informed Generation specifies the need for the spontaneous emergence and evolutionary development of self-organizing processes that generate phenotypes from genotypes. The principle of Informed Generation describes a ubiquitous feature of biological systems: without the prior existence of certain components or functionalities, which are required for the production of themselves and others, no configuration of genetic information that accumulated through Natural Selection could ever serve as a codescript for an organism. The operation of Informed Generation is demonstrated in the stepwise evolution of genetic coding and the general distinction between Natural Selection and Informed Generation is illustrated through consideration of gene-replicase-translatase (GRT) system. It is proposed that Informed Generation represents a quite general process of evolutionary self-organization in biological systems whereby essentially irreversible transitions in the systems' dynamics take them to historically contingent, isolated states whose characteristics are determinants of biological specificity. The operation of Informed Generation may have left detectable traces in topographical features of complex intracellular and ecological networks.
长期以来，人们一直从计算的角度将生物体基因组中储存的信息视为构建、运行和控制其所在系统的代码。然而，只有经过适当准备的细胞才能将基因组序列信息解释为生物指令并将其作为遗传代码执行，而该细胞与程序正确注册。我们探究了生成能够以越来越复杂的方式解释其所包含遗传信息的物理系统的进化过程的特征。信息生成原理指定了需要自发出现和进化发展的自我组织过程，这些过程从基因型生成表型。信息生成原理描述了生物系统的普遍特征：没有某些组件或功能的先验存在，这些组件或功能是自身和其他组件产生所必需的，那么通过自然选择积累的任何遗传信息配置都不可能作为生物体的代码。信息生成的运作在遗传编码的逐步进化中得到了证明，通过考虑基因复制酶翻译酶（GRT）系统，说明了自然选择和信息生成之间的一般区别。有人提出，信息生成代表了生物系统中一种相当普遍的进化自组织过程，通过这种过程，系统动力学中的本质上不可逆转变将系统带到具有历史偶然性的孤立状态，这些状态的特征决定了生物特异性。信息生成的运作可能在复杂的细胞内和生态网络的拓扑特征中留下了可检测的痕迹。
