The genetic code has a ‘shift’ key

How selenium has altered our understanding of the genetic code.

The Genetic Code the Concept of a Gene-protein Code

Genetic memory resides in specific molecules of nucleic acid. The information is encoded in the form of a linear sequence of bases of 4 varieties that corresponds to sequences of 20 varieties of amino acids in protein. The translation from nucleic acid to protein proceeds in a sequential fashion according to a systematic code with relatively simple rules. Each unit of nucleic acid definesthe sp...

Genetic Code as a Gray Code Revisited

In this paper we revisit the idea of relating the genetic code to a Gray code. This idea was originally fostered by Rosemary Swanson as a “unifying concept for the amino acid code”. We show that cyclic arrangements of the codons which are different from the one proposed by Swanson, but which are still based on the principle of minimal change, yield a better grouping of the amino acids by simila...

Expanding the genetic code.

Although chemists can synthesize virtually any small organic molecule, our ability to rationally manipulate the structures of proteins is quite limited, despite their involvement in virtually every life process. For most proteins, modifications are largely restricted to substitutions among the common 20 amino acids. Herein we describe recent advances that make it possible to add new building bl...

Reprogramming the genetic code.

When Maria Leptin called to say that I had been awarded the 2010 EMBO Gold Medal, I was delighted and surprised. The roll call of past winners is impressive, and I had been at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) when Jan Löwe had received the award in 2007 for his elegant work on the bacterial cytoskeleton (Michie and Löwe, 2006). I also knew that several other LMB scientists, including B...