title: On the evolution of primitive genetic codes.
abstract: The primordial genetic code probably has been a drastically simplified ancestor of the canonical code that is used by contemporary cells. In order to understand how the present-day code came about we first need to explain how the language of the building plan can change without destroying the encoded information. In this work we introduce a minimal organism model that is based on biophysically reasonable descriptions of RNA and protein, namely secondary structure folding and knowledge based potentials. The evolution of a population of such organism under competition for a common resource is simulated explicitly at the level of individual replication events. Starting with very simple codes, and hence greatly reduced amino acid alphabets, we observe a diversification of the codes in most simulation runs. The driving force behind this effect is the possibility to produce fitter proteins when the repertoire of amino acids is enlarged.
authors: Institut für Theoretische Chemie und Molekulare Strukturbiologie, Universität Wien, Wien, Austria.
authors: Günter
authors: G
authors: Weberndorfer
authors: Ivo L
authors: IL
authors: Hofacker
authors: Peter F
authors: PF
authors: Stadler
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005815:Genetic Code; D016678:Genome; D008957:Models, Genetic; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D012313:RNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins; D012313:RNA