Abstract
A considerable amount of evidence has been obtained in recent years on the statistics of nucleotide distributions in DNA sequences. The present paper is ventured on the problem of the biological meaning of the fractal nature of DNA. The relative weight of a class of non random sequences (purine, pyrimidine, A-T, G-C. 1-3 nucleotide repeats)was analysed in a large series of genomes and found to increase during evolution and to be higher in non-coding than in coding regions, “homogeneous” tracts being clustered with a non random distribution of distances. Experimental studies on variation in non-coding sequences offer evidence of a possible physiological and evolutionary role of homogeneous tracts at the intra-and interspecific level, connected with their hypervariable nature and their effects on DNA conformational landscapes. The “double-face” nature of such sequences, contributing to functional constraints to randomness but at the same time inducing additional noise and thereby plasticity to the genome is discussed in a new integrated view of the selection process.
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Buiatti, M., Acquisti, C., Mersi, G., Bogani, P., Buiatti, M. (2002). The Biological Meanings of DNA Correlations. In: Losa, G.A., Merlini, D., Nonnenmacher, T.F., Weibel, E.R. (eds) Fractals in Biology and Medicine. Mathematics and Biosciences in Interaction. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8119-7_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8119-7_24
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