Robustness of the Gray Code Arrangements of the Genetic Code in Mitochondria

Springer papers

Authors

Dragan Bosnacki , Hubertus M. M. ten Eikelder , Marieke Maanders and Peter A. J. Hilbers

Abstract

The genetic code determines how the genetic information is translated into proteins, which are building blocks of the living organisms. Genetic code can be related to Gray codes, a class of error resisting codes. In this paper we investigate the robustness of the Gray code representations of the genetic code in mitochondria, small cell organelles that contain genetic information separate from the rest of the cell. Mitochondria use a slightly modified version of the standard code which defines the main genetic information. Our result show that despite the fact that the mitochondrial codes seemingly show more regularities than the standard code, they are less robust with regard to the Gray code arrangement criterion. This could be a result of the lighter evolutionary pressure that the mitochondrial codes have endured compared to the standard code.

Keywords

computational biology genetic code Gray code mitochondria error resisting codes