Re:Adding new DNA letters makes novel proteins possible
by phkahler on Friday January 18, 2019 @08:11AM
(#18939035)
>> About half of the amino acids only use the first two nuclides and ignore the third.
I've often thought some of that redundancy in the code could be a feature. Important (more sensitive) sequences could evolve to a coding that is more robust against mutations, while things that are less important could be more brittle in their encoding. This seems hard to prove though.
It also allows a particular triplet to have more neighbors, meaning you can go from one amino acid to more options without going through intermediates.
I've often thought some of that redundancy in the code could be a feature. Important (more sensitive) sequences could evolve to a coding that is more robust against mutations, while things that are less important could be more brittle in their encoding. This seems hard to prove though.
It also allows a particular triplet to have more neighbors, meaning you can go from one amino acid to more options without going through intermediates.