A methanogen hosted the origin of the genetic code

Massimo Di Giulio (1)

1 Institute of Genetics and Biophysics 'Adriano Buzzati Traverso'

A comparison is made between orthologous proteins from a methanogen () and from a non-methanogen ( in order to determine the amino acid substitution pattern. This analysis makes it possible to establish which amino acids are significantly and asymmetrically utilised by these two organisms. A methanophily index (MI) based on this asymmetry makes it possible for any protein to be associated with a numerical value which, when calculated for the same orthologous protein from methanogenic and non-methanogenic organisms, turns out to have the power to discriminate between these two groups of organisms, even if only for about 20% of the analysed proteins. The MI can also be associated to the genetic code under the assumption that the frequency of synonymous codons specifying the amino acids in the genetic code also reflects the frequency with which amino acids appeared in ancestral proteins. Finally a t test shows that the MI value associated to the genetic code is not different from the mean value of the MI deriving from methanogen proteins, but it differs from the mean MI of non-methanogen proteins. This might indicate that the genetic code evolved in a methanogenic ‘organism'.

Mots clés: Amino acid substitution pattern; LUCA; timing of methanogenesis; biological dating

Massimo Di Giulio. A methanogen hosted the origin of the genetic code. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2009, 260 (1), pp.77. ⟨10.1016/j.jtbi.2009.05.030⟩. ⟨hal-00554620⟩