Related papers: "Junk" DNA as a genetic decoy
Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) is a useful type of Neural Networks in various types of applications including generative models and feature extraction. Various types of GANs are being researched with different insights, resulting in a…
A central goal of evolutionary biology is to explain the origins and distribution of diversity across life. Beyond species or genetic diversity, we also observe diversity in the circuits (genetic or otherwise) underlying complex functional…
Understanding the dynamics of genome rearrangements is a major issue of phylogenetics. Phylogenetics is the study of species evolution. A major goal of the field is to establish evolutionary relationships within groups of species, in order…
The formation of DNA loops by proteins and protein complexes is ubiquitous to many fundamental cellular processes, including transcription, recombination, and replication. Here we review recent advances in understanding the properties of…
Genetic drift is stochastic fluctuations of alleles frequencies in a population due to sampling effects. We consider a model of drift in an equilibrium population, with high mutation rates: few functional mutations per generation. Such…
Significant fraction (98.5% in humans) of most animal genomes is non- coding dark matter. Its largely unknown function (1-5) is related to programming (rather than to spontaneous mutations) of accurate adaptation to rapidly changing…
Reputed intractable, the question of the origin of viruses has long been neglected. In the modern literature 'Virus evolution' has come to refer to study more akin to population genetics, such as the world-wide scrutiny on new polymorphisms…
Genetic algorithms are considered as one of the most efficient search techniques. Although they do not offer an optimal solution, their ability to reach a suitable solution in considerably short time gives them their respectable role in…
A major goal of molecular evolutionary biology is to identify loci or regions of the genome under selection versus those evolving in a neutral manner. Correct identification allows accurate inference of the evolutionary process and thus…
The question of why we age is a fundamental one. It is about who we are, and it also might have critical practical aspects as we try to find ways to age slower. Or to not age at all. Different reasons point at distinct strategies for the…
In this paper we will review various aspects of the biology of prions and focus on what is currently known about the mammalian PrP prion. Also we briefly describe the prions of yeast and other fungi. Prions are infectious proteins behaving…
The evolution in coding DNA sequences brings new flexibility and freedom to the codon words, even as the underlying nucleotides get significantly ordered. These curious contra-rules of gene organisation are observed from the distribution of…
Maintenance of sexual reproduction and genetic recombination imposes physiological costs when compared to parthenogenic reproduction, most prominently: for maintaining the corresponding (molecular) machinery, for finding a mating partner,…
DNA replication is an essential process in biology and its timing must be robust so that cells can divide properly. Random fluctuations in the formation of replication starting points, called origins, and the subsequent activation of…
Textual analysis of typical microbial genomes reveals that they have the statistical characteristics of a DNA sequence of a much shorter length. This peculiar property supports an evolutionary model in which a genome evolves by random…
Several technological applications require the translation of a protein into a nucleic acid that codes for it (``backtranslation''). The degeneracy of the genetic code makes this translation ambiguous; moreover, not every translation is…
DNA replication is a process which is common to all domains of life yet different replication mechanisms are seen among different organisms. The mechanism of replication on such a structure is not yet understood. With this bigger picture in…
Emerging evidence suggests that the introns and intergenic sequences of the genomes of higher eukaryotes (the ``junk'' DNA) codes for a vast, RNA-based, genetic regulatory network. It is believed that this network is responsible for the…
Eukaryote genomes contain excessively introns, inter-genic and other non-genic sequences that appear to have no vital functional role or phenotype manifestation. Their existence, a long-standing puzzle, is viewed from the principle of…
Most new mutations are deleterious and are eventually eliminated by natural selection. But in an adapting population, the rapid amplification of beneficial mutations can hinder the removal of deleterious variants in nearby regions of the…