Closure properties of Watson-Crick grammars

In this paper, we define Watson-Crick context-free grammars, as an extension of Watson-Crick regular grammars and Watson-Crick linear grammars with context-free grammar rules. We show the relation of Watson-Crick (regular and linear) grammars to the sticker systems, and study some of the important closure properties of the Watson-Crick grammars. We establish that the Watson-Crick regular grammars are closed under almost all of the main closure operations, while the differences between other Watson-Crick grammars with their corresponding Chomsky grammars depend on the computational power of the Watson-Crick grammars which still need to be studied

Static watson-crick linear grammars and its computational power

DNA computing, or more generally, molecular computing, is a recent development on computations using biological molecules, instead of the traditional siliconchips. Some computational models which are based on different operations of DNA molecules have been developed by using the concept of formal language theory. The operations of DNA molecules inspire various types of formal language tools which include sticker systems, grammars and automata. Recently, the grammar counterparts of Watson-Crick automata known as Watson-Crick grammars which consist of regular, linear and context-free grammars, are defined as grammar models that generate doublestranded strings using the important feature of Watson-Crick complementarity rule. In this research, a new variant of static Watson-Crick linear grammar is introduced as an extension of static Watson-Crick regular grammar. A static Watson-Crick linear grammar is a grammar counterpart of sticker system that generates the double-stranded strings and uses rule as in linear grammar. There is a difference in generating double-stranded strings between a dynamic Watson-Crick linear grammar and a static Watson-Crick linear grammar. A dynamic Watson-Crick linear grammar produces each stranded string independently and only check for the Watson-Crick complementarity of a generated complete double-stranded string at the end; while the static Watson-Crick linear grammar generates both stranded strings dependently, i.e., checking for the WatsonCrick complementarity for each complete substring. The main result of the paper is to determine some computational properties of static Watson-Crick linear grammars. Next, the hierarchy between static Watson-Crick languages, Watson-Crick languages, Chomsky languages and families of languages generated by sticker systems are presented

Computational properties of Watson-Crick context-free grammars

Deoxyribonucleic acid, or popularly known as DNA, continues to inspire many theoretical computing models, such as sticker systems and Watson-Crick grammars. Sticker systems are the abstraction of ligation processes performed on DNA, while Watson-Crick grammars are models motivated from Watson-Crick finite automata and Chomsky grammars. Both of these theoretical models benefit from the Watson-Crick complementarity rule. In this paper, we establish the results on the relationship between Watson-Crick linear grammars, which is included in Watson-Crick context-free grammars, and sticker systems. We show that the family of arbitrary sticker languages, generated from arbitrary sticker systems, is included in the family of Watson-Crick linear languages, generated from Watson-Crick linear grammars

Static Watson-Crick context-free grammars

Sticker systems and Watson-Crick automata are two modellings of DNA molecules in DNA computing. A sticker system is a computational model which is coded with single and double-stranded DNA molecules; while Watson-Crick automata is the automata counterpart of sticker system which represents the biological properties of DNA. Both of these models use the feature of Watson-Crick complementarity in DNA computing. Previously, the grammar counterpart of the Watson-Crick automata have been introduced, known as Watson-Crick grammars which are classified into three classes: Watson- Crick regular grammars, Watson-Crick linear grammars and Watson-Crick context-free grammars. In this research, a new variant of Watson-Crick grammar called a static Watson-Crick context-free grammar, which is a grammar counterpart of sticker systems that generates the double-stranded strings and uses rule as in context-free grammar, is introduced. The static Watson-Crick context- free grammar differs from a dynamic Watson-Crick context-free grammar in generating double-stranded strings, as well as for regular and linear grammars. The main result of the paper is to determine the generative powers of static Watson-Crick context-free grammars. Besides, the relationship of the families of languages generated by Chomsky grammars, sticker systems and Watson- Crick grammars are presented in terms of their hierarchy

The computational power of Watson-Crick grammars: Revisited

A Watson-Crick finite automaton is one of DNA computational models using the Watson-Crick complementarity feature of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). We are interested in investigating a grammar counterpart of Watson-Crick automata. In this paper, we present results concerning the generative power of Watson-Crick (regular, linear, context-free) grammars. We show that the family of Watson-Crick context-free languages is included in the family of matrix languages

Genomics and proteomics: a signal processor's tour

The theory and methods of signal processing are becoming increasingly important in molecular biology. Digital filtering techniques, transform domain methods, and Markov models have played important roles in gene identification, biological sequence analysis, and alignment. This paper contains a brief review of molecular biology, followed by a review of the applications of signal processing theory. This includes the problem of gene finding using digital filtering, and the use of transform domain methods in the study of protein binding spots. The relatively new topic of noncoding genes, and the associated problem of identifying ncRNA buried in DNA sequences are also described. This includes a discussion of hidden Markov models and context free grammars. Several new directions in genomic signal processing are briefly outlined in the end

Watson–Crick context-free grammars: Grammar simplifications and a parsing algorithm

A Watson–Crick (WK) context-free grammar, a context-free grammar with productions whose right-hand sides contain nonterminals and double-stranded terminal strings, generates complete double-stranded strings under Watson–Crick complementarity. In this paper, we investigate the simplification processes of Watson–Crick context-free grammars, which lead to defining Chomsky like normal form for Watson–Crick context-free grammars. The main result of the paper is a modified CYK (Cocke–Younger–Kasami) algorithm for Watson–Crick context-free grammars in WK-Chomsky normal form, allowing to parse double-stranded strings in O(n^6) time