A new integrated symmetrical table for genetic codes

• Main Author: Shu, Jian-Jun
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Genetic codes; Symmetry
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84682; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/41937
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Degeneracy is a salient feature of genetic codes, because there are more codons than amino acids. The conventional table for genetic codes suffers from an inability of illustrating a symmetrical nature among genetic base codes. In fact, because the conventional wisdom avoids the question, there is little agreement as to whether the symmetrical nature actually even exists. A better understanding of symmetry and an appreciation for its essential role in the genetic code formation can improve our understanding of nature’s coding processes. Thus, it is worth formulating a new integrated symmetrical table for genetic codes, which is presented in this paper. It could be very useful to understand the Nobel laureate Crick’s wobble hypothesis — how one transfer ribonucleic acid can recognize two or more synonymous codons, which is an unsolved fundamental question in biological science.