"On degenerate templates and the adaptor hypothesis"

Date:
1955
Reference:
PP/CRI/H/1/38
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: "On degenerate templates and the adaptor hypothesis". Source: Wellcome Collection.

    57/132
    Logical Degeneracy . Although I have argued that there may be no simple relationship between the different triplets of base-pairs representing one amino acid, it is obviously sensible to investigate forms of degeneracy which derive from simple structural ideas, as Gamow's did. To illustrate this, consider a simple example. Imagine a code based on diamonds like Gamow's, and allow rotational degeneracy, i.e. if /\ ' V* f but not the other pair, I ( and ^ ' then associate with it ¿ /\¡ u A V allowed by Gamow, - ^ This gives too many possibilities. Now argue as follows: Suppose that we consider the of adenine as of thymine as indistinguishable from that of guanine as far as the top and bottom of the diamonds are concerned. Let us put Guanine = 1 Cytosine = 2 Thymine = 3 Adenine = Lf. Then, for example, we shall have one amino acid represented by the following diamonds: '0* k x \)' A V z 4 That is, if we have 3 in the top or bottom position, we can also have 1 (and vice versa). It will be found that there are 18 such sets. Two of them contain eight representations each, eight contain four each, and the remaining eight contain two representations each. This does not quite get us to- 20, but one might manage this by relaxing