Abstract
The origin of the modern genetic code and the mechanisms that have contributed to its present form raise many questions. The main goal of this work is to test two hypotheses concerning the development of the genetic code for their compatibility and complementarity and see if they could benefit from each other. On the one hand, Gonzalez, Giannerini and Rosa developed a theory, based on four-based codons, which they called tesserae. This theory can explain the degeneracy of the modern vertebrate mitochondrial code. On the other hand, in the 1990s, so-called circular codes were discovered in nature, which seem to ensure the maintenance of a correct reading-frame during the translation process. It turns out that the two concepts not only do not contradict each other, but on the contrary complement and enrichen each other.
Highlights
In 1986, John Maynard Smith stated: “We understand biological phenomena only when we have invented machines with similar properties” (Smith 1986, pp 99–100)
In Gonzalez et al (2012) and Gonzalez et al (2019) Gonzalez, Giannerini and Rosa had proposed an ancestor code of the universal genetic code that is based on 64 tetranucleotides built from dinucleotides by using the Klein four symmetry group
It was hypothesized that this tessera code existed before LUCA and even before the early genetic code that coded for 20 amino acids using all 64 codons
Summary
In 1986, John Maynard Smith stated: “We understand biological phenomena only when we have invented machines with similar properties” (Smith 1986, pp 99–100). Noether’s theorem even states a one-to-one connection between fundamental laws of nature so-called conservation laws- and respective symmetries in nature Taking these general considerations into account, Gonzalez, Giannerini, and Rosa argue that none of the theories regarding the origin of the genetic code pays the necessary attention to the idea of symmetry (Gonzalez et al 2019). The other line of thought adressed by the current work is the theory of circular codes This theory is intended to explain the property of the noise-immunity of the genetic code, and is based on a proposal by Crick et al (1957). They argue that the coding of amino acids requires only a subset of codons where the correct reading-frame is automatically and immediately recognizable - the so-called comma-free property. With this work we hope to bring more clarity into the possible role of tesserae in the evolutionary process of the genetic code and the mechanisms behind it
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