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arXiv · 0708.1598

Genomes: at the edge of chaos with maximum information capacity

Sing-Guan Kong·Hong-Da Chen·Wen-Lang Fan·Jan Wigger·Andrew Torda·HC Lee
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Abstract

We propose an order index, phi, which quantifies the notion of ``life at the edge of chaos'' when applied to genome sequences. It maps genomes to a number from 0 (random and of infinite length) to 1 (fully ordered) and applies regardless of sequence length. The 786 complete genomic sequences in GenBank were found to have phi values in a very narrow range, 0.037+/-0.027. We show this implies that genomes are halfway towards being completely random, namely, at the edge of chaos. We argue that this narrow range represents the neighborhood of a fixed-point in the space of sequences, and genomes are driven there by the dynamics of a robust, predominantly neutral evolution process.

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Sing-Guan Kong, Hong-Da Chen, Wen-Lang Fan, Jan Wigger, Andrew Torda, HC Lee. 2007-08-12. Genomes: at the edge of chaos with maximum information capacity. https://arxiv.org/abs/0708.1598

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