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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1982 Nov;79(22):7061–7065. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.22.7061

Symmetry characteristics of the genetic code.

G L Findley, A M Findley, S P McGlynn
PMCID: PMC347275  PMID: 6960365

Abstract

The symmetric pattern of codon degeneracies is discussed by using empirical arguments processed within a group-theoretic framework. It is reasoned that the genetic code is a relation rather than a mapping, and the symmetry of a relation defined on the codons is investigated. The principal results are (i) a new extraction of the basic symmetry inherent in the standard genetic code; (ii) the unification of the symmetry of ambiguous codon assignments with that of the standard genetic code; and (iii) the primacy of the concept of a biological context as that device which degenerates the code relation to a mapping.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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