title: Why the Central Dogma: on the nature of the great biological exclusion principle.
abstract: The Central Dogma of molecular biology posits that transfer of information from proteins back to nucleic acids does not occur in biological systems. I argue that the impossibility of reverse translation is indeed a major, physical exclusion principle that emerges due to the transition from the digital information carriers, nucleic acids, to analog information carriers, proteins, which involves irreversible suppression of the digital information.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Instittues of Health, Bethesda, MD, 20894, USA. koonin@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
authors.forename: Eugene V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Koonin
mesh_terms: D008967:Molecular Biology; D009696:Nucleic Acids / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D009696:Nucleic Acids; D011506:Proteins