Genetic Channel Capacity Revisited

• Published in: Bio-Inspired Models of Networks, Information, and Computing Systems pp. 85 - 98
• Main Author: Balado, Félix
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin, Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2012
• Series: Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
• Subjects: Channel Capacity; Channel Matrix; Mutation Model; Mutual Information; Transition Probability Matrix
• ISBN: 3642327109; 9783642327100
• ISSN: 1867-8211; 1867-822X
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-32711-7_7

We revisit previous analyses on the computation of the maximum mutual information between a genetic sequence and its mutated versions down the generations, taking into account the protein translation mechanism of the genetic machinery. This amounts to the application of Shannon’s capacity to the study of the transmission of genetic information. Studies on this subject were started by Yockey and then followed by a number of researchers. Here we refine prior analyses employing the Kimura model of base substitution mutations, which is more realistic than the Jukes-Cantor model used by all previous research on this topic. Furthermore we undertake exact computations where prior works just used approximations, and we propose two practical applications of genetic capacity.