Bases are not letters: On the Analogy between the Genetic Code and Natural Language by Sequence Analysis

Kód výsledku v IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15210%2F19%3A73580664" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15210/19:73580664 - isvavai.cz</a>

Výsledek na webu

<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-019-09353-z" target="_blank" >https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-019-09353-z</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12304-019-09353-z" target="_blank" >10.1007/s12304-019-09353-z</a>

Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

Bases are not letters: On the Analogy between the Genetic Code and Natural Language by Sequence Analysis

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

The article deals with the notion of the genetic code and its metaphorical understanding as a “language”. In the traditional view of the language metaphor of the genetic code, combinations of nucleotides are signs of amino acids (see the table of the genetic code). Similarly, words combined from letters (speech sounds) represent certain meanings. The language metaphor of the genetic code (Markoš and Faltýnek, Biosemiotics 4(2), 171–200, 2011) assumes that the nucleotides stay in the analogy to letters, triples to words and genes to sentences (Jakobson 1971). We propose an application of mathematical linguistic methods on the notion of the genetic code. We provide quantitative analysis (n-gram structure, Zipf’s law) of mRNA strings and natural language texts. This analysis is sensitive to the detection of the code (language) units hierarchy. We also take into consideration a representative quantitative analysis of DNA, RNA and proteins. Our analysis of mRNA confirms an assumption that the design of the genetic code cannot analogize DNA bases and letters. The notion of the letter is much more appropriate if analogized with triplets or amino acids (see Lacková et al, Theory in Biosciences 136(3–4), 187–191, 2017).

Název v anglickém jazyce

Bases are not letters: On the Analogy between the Genetic Code and Natural Language by Sequence Analysis

Popis výsledku anglicky

The article deals with the notion of the genetic code and its metaphorical understanding as a “language”. In the traditional view of the language metaphor of the genetic code, combinations of nucleotides are signs of amino acids (see the table of the genetic code). Similarly, words combined from letters (speech sounds) represent certain meanings. The language metaphor of the genetic code (Markoš and Faltýnek, Biosemiotics 4(2), 171–200, 2011) assumes that the nucleotides stay in the analogy to letters, triples to words and genes to sentences (Jakobson 1971). We propose an application of mathematical linguistic methods on the notion of the genetic code. We provide quantitative analysis (n-gram structure, Zipf’s law) of mRNA strings and natural language texts. This analysis is sensitive to the detection of the code (language) units hierarchy. We also take into consideration a representative quantitative analysis of DNA, RNA and proteins. Our analysis of mRNA confirms an assumption that the design of the genetic code cannot analogize DNA bases and letters. The notion of the letter is much more appropriate if analogized with triplets or amino acids (see Lacková et al, Theory in Biosciences 136(3–4), 187–191, 2017).

Druh

J_imp - Článek v periodiku v databázi Web of Science

CEP obor

—

OECD FORD obor

60203 - Linguistics

Projekt

—

Návaznosti

O - Projekt operacniho programu

Rok uplatnění

2019

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Název periodika

Biosemiotics

ISSN

1875-1342

e-ISSN

—

Svazek periodika

12

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

2

Stát vydavatele periodika

NL - Nizozemsko

Počet stran výsledku

16

Strana od-do

289-304

Kód UT WoS článku

000483695600006

EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

2-s2.0-85071573212