Page "Genetic code" Paragraph 23

* Information channels: Information-theoretic approaches see the genetic code as an error-prone information channel.

The inherent noise ( that is, the error ) in the channel poses the organism with a fundamental question: how can a genetic code be constructed to withstand the impact of noise while accurately and efficiently translating information?

These “ rate-distortion ” models suggest that the genetic code originated as a result of the interplay of the three conflicting evolutionary forces: the needs for diverse amino-acids, for error-tolerance and for minimal cost of resources.

The code emerges at a coding transition when the mapping of codons to amino-acids becomes nonrandom.

The emergence of the code is governed by the topology defined by the probable errors and is related to the map coloring problem.