27,593 research outputs found
`The frozen accident' as an evolutionary adaptation: A rate distortion theory perspective on the dynamics and symmetries of genetic coding mechanisms
We survey some interpretations and related issues concerning the frozen hypothesis due to F. Crick and how it can be explained in terms of several natural mechanisms involving error correction codes, spin glasses, symmetry breaking and the characteristic robustness of genetic networks. The approach to most of these questions involves using elements of Shannon's rate distortion theory incorporating a semantic system which is meaningful for the relevant alphabets and vocabulary implemented in transmission of the genetic code. We apply the fundamental homology between information source uncertainty with the free energy density of a thermodynamical system with respect to transcriptional regulators and the communication channels of sequence/structure in proteins. This leads to the suggestion that the frozen accident may have been a type of evolutionary adaptation
Mutually Uncorrelated Primers for DNA-Based Data Storage
We introduce the notion of weakly mutually uncorrelated (WMU) sequences,
motivated by applications in DNA-based data storage systems and for
synchronization of communication devices. WMU sequences are characterized by
the property that no sufficiently long suffix of one sequence is the prefix of
the same or another sequence. WMU sequences used for primer design in DNA-based
data storage systems are also required to be at large mutual Hamming distance
from each other, have balanced compositions of symbols, and avoid primer-dimer
byproducts. We derive bounds on the size of WMU and various constrained WMU
codes and present a number of constructions for balanced, error-correcting,
primer-dimer free WMU codes using Dyck paths, prefix-synchronized and cyclic
codes.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, 1 Table. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1601.0817
- ā¦