File Compression and Expansion of the Genetic Code by the Use of the Yin/Yang Directions to Find its Sphered Cube

摘要

Objective: The objective of this article is to demonstrate that the genetic code can be studied and represented in a 3-D Sphered Cube for bioinformatics and for education by using the graphical help of the ancient “Book of Changes” or I Ching for the comparison, pair by pair, of the three basic characteristics of nucleotides: H-bonds, molecular structure, and their tautomerism.Methods: The source of natural biodiversity is the high plasticity of the genetic code, analyzable with a reverse engineering of its 2-D and 3-D representations (here illustrated), but also through the classical 64-hexagrams of the ancient I Ching, as if they were the 64-codons or words of the genetic code.Results: In this article, the four elements of the Yin/Yang were found by correlating the 3x2=6 sets of Cartesian comparisons of the mentioned properties of nucleic acids, to the directionality of their resulting blocks of codons grouped according to their resulting amino acids and/or functions, integrating a 384 codon Sphered Cube whose function is illustrated by comparing six brain peptides and a promoter of osteoblasts from Humans versus Neanderthal, as well as to Negadi’s work on the importance of the number 384 within the genetic code.Conclusions: Starting with the codon/anticodon correlation of Nirenberg, published in full here for the first time, and by studying the genetic code and its 3-D display, the buffers of reiteration within codons codifying for the same amino acid, displayed the two long (binary number one) and older Yin/Yang arrows that travel in opposite directions, mimicking the parental DNA strands, while annealing to the two younger and broken (binary number zero) Yin/Yang arrows, mimicking the new DNA strands; the graphic analysis of the genetic code and its plasticity was helpful to compare compatible sequences, while further exploring the wondrous biodiversity of nature for educational purposes.