title: Uncertainty principle of genetic information in a living cell.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: 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
authors.forename: Pierluigi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Strippoli
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Canaider
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Noferini
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: D'Addabbo
authors.forename: Lorenza
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Vitale
authors.forename: Federica
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Facchin
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lenzi
authors.forename: Raffaella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Casadei
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Carinci
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zannotti
authors.forename: Flavia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Frabetti
mesh_terms: 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
chemical_list: D004247:DNA