This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: gr.6144007v1 17/4/401    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Bollenbach, T. Articles by Kishony, R. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Bollenbach, T. Articles by Kishony, R. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Perspective

Evolution and multilevel optimization of the genetic code

¹ Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA; ² School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

The discovery of the genetic code was one of the most important advances of modern biology. But there is more to a DNA code than protein sequence; DNA carries signals for splicing, localization, folding, and regulation that are often embedded within the protein-coding sequence. In this issue, Itzkovitz and Alon show that the specific 64-to-20 mapping found in the genetic code may have been optimized for permitting protein-coding regions to carry this extra information and suggest that this property may have evolved as a side benefit of selection to minimize the negative effects of frameshift errors.

E-mail roy_kishony{at}hms.harvard.edu; fax (617) 432-5012.

Article published online before print. Article and publication date are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.6144007

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Pheasant and J. S. Mattick Raising the estimate of functional human sequences Genome Res., September 1, 2007; 17(9): 1245 - 1253. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]