Abstract
This essay provides an overview of the science behind the preceding novel, ranging from basic biology of DNA to cutting-edge technologies in synthetic genomes. The state of modern science relating both to the code in ‘Carolyn’s Code’ and the secret it encoded is covered, as well as speculation on advances necessary to reach the state of science described in the fiction.
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Notes
- 1.
Much of the material covered in this essay can be found in any good introductory biology textbook, for example Campbell et al (2017) Biology: A Global Approach 10th Edition, Pearson Education Ltd: Essex, UK; where particular other sources are of interest, pointers will be provided.
- 2.
The only difference between these two is that ribose has one more oxygen than deoxyribose: the ‘deoxy’ part of the name just says it is ribose minus an oxygen!
- 3.
The term ‘intron’ originally came from ‘intragenic region’, meaning region inside of a gene; however, it is commonly now also interpreted as ‘intervening region’.
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Detailed exploration of this interesting phenomena (and scattered other special cases) are beyond the scope of this essay; however, a simple explanation is that in many bees, wasps, and ants, it is the number of chromosomes that determines sex: females develop from fertilized eggs, containing pairs of chromosomes; males develop from unfertilized eggs, containing only one of each chromosome.
- 8.
While many women with trisomy X have so few issues they are never diagnosed, it can also present with abnormalities including developmental delays, physical issues such as scoliosis, psychiatric disorders, and ovarian failure. One common feature of trisomy X is tall stature, and readers will note that Carolyn is physically tall (although as we have not met her parents, it is unclear if this is due to trisomy X or standard inheritance!).
- 9.
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- 12.
Transformation is used to refer to the addition of ‘plain’ DNA to a cell; when the DNA is packaged into a virus (as is done for some eukaryotic cells, particularly those originating in multi-cellular organisms), the process is called transfection.
- 13.
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Just like computer memory, base pairs use metric prefixes to indicate longer lengths, for example, 1 Kbp is 1000 base pairs, 1 Mbp is 1,000,000 base pairs, and so on.
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- 21.
The astute reader may notice the linguistic similarity between adenosine triphosphate and the base adenine mentioned at the very start of this essay. This similarity goes beyond words: adenine is a component of ATP, which additionally consists of the sugar ribose and three phosphate groups—a similar molecule to a single adenine nucleotide of RNA, except with three phosphate groups instead of one. Further related are the ‘dNTPs’ in the very first bit of decoded material that Carolyn read on the airplane: dATP, or deoxyadenonsine triphosphate, is one of the raw building blocks of DNA, along with dGTP, dTTP, and dCTP, collectively known as deoxynucleoside triphosphates—two of the phosphate groups are removed when a dNTP joins a growing chain of nucleotides. The ‘deoxy’ part simply indicates that the sugar is deoxyribose instead of ribose.
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LCD Pomatto & KJA Davies. 2018. Adaptive homeostasis and the free radical theory of ageing. Free Radical Biology and Medicine 124:420–430, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2018.06.016.
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There are in fact many types of RNA polymerases and DNA polymerases; the RNA polymerase that makes mRNA is typically not the same RNA polymerase that makes an RNA primer. However, all RNA polymerases and DNA polymerases share the features described here: RNA polymerases can start with a single nucleotide, DNA polymerases must add to a strand.
- 25.
G Lidzbarsky, D Gutman, H Shekhidem, L Sharvit & G Atzmon. 2018. Genomic instabilities, cellular senescence, and aging: in vitro, in vivo and aging-like human syndromes. Frontiers in Medicine 5:104, doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2018.00104.
- 26.
The ‘9’ in Cas9 simply indicates it is the ninth in the family of Cas proteins, which has been particularly useful for biotechnology.
- 27.
AN Patananan, TH Wu, P-Y Chiou & MA Teitell. 2016. Modifying the mitochondrial genome. Cell Metabolism 23:785–796, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2016.04.004.
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Smith, V.A. (2019). The Biology Behind Carolyn’s Code. In: A Code for Carolyn. Science and Fiction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04553-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04553-1_2
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