Uncertainty principle of genetic information in a living cell.
BACKGROUND
Formal description of a cell's genetic information should provide the number of DNA molecules in that cell and their complete nucleotide sequences. We pose the formal problem: can the genome sequence forming the genotype of a given living cell be known with absolute certainty so that the cell's behaviour (phenotype) can be correlated to that genetic information? To answer this question, we propose a series of thought experiments.


RESULTS
We show that the genome sequence of any actual living cell cannot physically be known with absolute certainty, independently of the method used. There is an associated uncertainty, in terms of base pairs, equal to or greater than micros (where micro is the mutation rate of the cell type and s is the cell's genome size).


CONCLUSIONS
This finding establishes an "uncertainty principle" in genetics for the first time, and its analogy with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics is discussed. The genetic information that makes living cells work is thus better represented by a probabilistic model rather than as a completely defined object.
Strippoli
Pierluigi
P
Center for Research in Molecular Genetics Fondazione CARISBO, Department of Histology, Embriology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, BO, Italy. pierluigi.strippoli@unibo.it
Canaider
Silvia
S
Noferini
Francesco
F
D'Addabbo
Pietro
P
Vitale
Lorenza
L
Facchin
Federica
F
Lenzi
Luca
L
Casadei
Raffaella
R
Carinci
Paolo
P
Zannotti
Maria
M
Frabetti
Flavia
F
D000818:Animals; D001703:Biophysics / Q000379:methods*; D004247:DNA / Q000378:metabolism*; D023281:Genomics; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D008957:Models, Genetic; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010641:Phenotype; D035501:Uncertainty
D004247:DNA