title: Directed self-assembly, genomic assembly complexity and the formation of biological structure, or, what are the genes for nacre?
abstract: Biology uses dynamical mechanisms of self-organization and self-assembly of materials, but it also choreographs and directs these processes. The difference between abiotic self-assembly and a biological process is rather like the difference between setting up and running an experiment to make a material remotely compared with doing it in one's own laboratory: with a remote experiment-say on the International Space Station-everything must be set up beforehand to let the experiment run 'hands off', but in the laboratory one can intervene at any point in a 'hands-on' approach. It is clear that the latter process, of directed self-assembly, can allow much more complicated experiments and produce far more complex structures than self-assembly alone. This control over self-assembly in biology is exercised at certain key waypoints along a trajectory and the process may be quantified in terms of the genomic assembly complexity of a biomaterial.
authors: Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra, CSIC-Universidad de Granada, Armilla, Granada 18100, Spain Instituto Carlos I de Física Teórica y Computacional, Universidad de Granada, Granada 18071, Spain julyan.cartwright@csic.es.
authors: Julyan H E
authors: 0000-0001-7392-0957
authors: JH
authors: Cartwright
mesh_terms: D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D060734:Nacre / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D060734:Nacre
keywords: DNA; complexity; information; self-assembly; self-organization