Séminaire de Mathématique-Biologie

Symmetries in the genetic code

by Prof. Jean-Luc JESTIN (Institut Pasteur & IHES)

Europe/Paris
Amphithéâtre Léon Motchane (IHES)

Amphithéâtre Léon Motchane

IHES

Le Bois-Marie 35, route de Chartres 91440 Bures-sur-Yvette
Description
The four billion years old genetic code is quasi-universal among living organisms. Mathematical insights into the genetic code can be gained by studying its symmetries. Symmetries by base substitutions were identified for the 2' and 3' sets of aminoacyl-tRNAs with Soulé in 2007. Half a century ago, Rumer described symmetries by base substitutions for degeneracy, the number of base triplets coding for each of the twenty canonical amino acids found in natural proteins. Apart from base substitutions, another class of mutations consists of frameshift mutations. The most frequent frameshift mutations are single-base deletions which are highly deleterious within genes as they alter the reading frame. The central role of mutations which are errors induced by biological catalysts, will be analyzed in the context of the minimization of their deleterious effects, the codon assignment of amino acids and chain termination signals in the genetic code and molecular evolution.
 
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