Physical Model for the Evolution of the Genetic Code

Abstract

We propose a physical model to describe the mechanisms of two major scenarios of the genetic code evolution, the codon capture and ambiguous intermediate scenarios, in a consistent manner. We sketch the lowest dimensional version of our model, a minimal model, by introducing a physical quantity, codon level. On the basis of the hierarchical structure of the codon levels two scenarios are classified into two different routes of the evolutional process. In the case of the ambiguous intermediate scenario we perform a simulation implemented cost selection of amino acids and confirm a rapid transition of the code change. Such rapidness reduces uncomfortableness of the non-unique translation of the code at intermediate state that is the weakness of the scenario.