The Symmetry of the Genetic Code and a Universal Trend of Amino Acid Gain and Loss

TL;DR

This paper explores how spontaneous DNA damage influences amino acid gain and loss, proposing a hypothesis that explains the genetic code's evolution, symmetry, and stability through nucleotide damage mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a hypothesis linking DNA damage to genetic code evolution, explaining amino acid trends, code symmetry, and dialects.

Findings

DNA damage accounts for amino acid gain and loss trends

Genetic code symmetry is explained by damage-induced mutations

The hypothesis explains code stability and dialects

Abstract

Part 1 of the study intends to show that the universal trend of amino acid gain and loss discovered by Jordan et al. (2005) can be accounted for by the spontaneity of DNA typical damages. These damages lead to replacements of guanine and cytosine by thymine. Part 2 proposes a hypothesis of the evolution of the genetic code, the leading mechanism of which is the nucleotide spontaneous damage. The hypothesis accounts for the universal trend of amino acid gain and loss, stability of the genetic code towards point mutations, the presence of code dialects, and the symmetry of the genetic code table.