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Bijective codon transformations show genetic code symmetries centered on cytosine’s coding properties

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Abstract

Homology of some RNAs with template DNA requires systematic exchanges between nucleotides. Such exchanges produce ‘swinger’ RNA along 23 bijective transformations (nine symmetric, X ↔ Y; and 14 asymmetric, X → Y → Z → X, for example A ↔ C and A → C → G → A, respectively). Here, analyses compare amino acids coded by swinger-transformed codons to those coded by untransformed codons, defining coding invariance after transformations. Swinger transformations cluster according to coding invariance in four groups characterized by transformations into cytosine (C = C, T → C, A → C, and G → C). C’s central mutational coding role shows that swinger transformations constrained genetic code genesis. Coding invariance post-transformations correlate positively/negatively with mitochondrial swinger transcription/lepidosaurian body temperature. Presumably, low/high temperatures stabilize/revert rare swinger polymerization modes, producing long swinger sequences/point mutations, respectively. Coding invariance after swinger transformations might compensate effects of swinger polymerizations in species with low body temperatures. Hypothetically, swinger transcription increased coding potential of RNA self-replicating protolife systems under heating/cooling cycles.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out thanks to the support of the A*MIDEX Project (No. ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02. funded by the « Investissements d’Avenir » French Government program, managed by the French National Research Agency (ANR) and by the Méditerranée Infection and the National Research Agency under the program “Investissements d’avenir” reference ANR-10-IAHU-03.

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  1. Unité de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales Émergentes, Faculté de Médecine, URMITE CNRS-IRD 198, UMR 6236, Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France

    Hervé Seligmann

  2. Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 91904, Jerusalem, Israel

    Hervé Seligmann

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  1. Hervé Seligmann
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Seligmann, H. Bijective codon transformations show genetic code symmetries centered on cytosine’s coding properties. Theory Biosci. 137, 17–31 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-017-0258-x

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