The genetic code optimality
by
Ivan Trenchev
South-West University, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Coauthors: Peter Milanov

The genetic code could be considered as a system of storage, transmission, execution and regulation of the information encoded in the genes. The notion of resistance of the genetic code against the effect of mutations, which are equivalent of the errors inherent to all information systems is analyzed.

It is to be expected that contemporary genetic code is a structure ensures maximum resistance to mutation effects. So it is worthy to analyze this problem. It is can be shown that different theoretical codes built from a fixed number of triplets resist to the effect of mutation differently depending on the relative positions of their codons in the 64 possible divisions.

The previous works in this area analyzed the optimality of groups of triplets translated into the same amino acid. It hasn’t been measured correctly the resistance of the whole genetic code to the creation of non-synonym mutations.

In the present paper we define measures of resistance of the genetic code and corresponding optimization principles.

It is observed a good correspondence between the contemporary genetic code and the theoretical ones.

Date received: August 1, 2001