by “codon” maybe he is referring to genetics; there was work done on codon
frequencies in genetics starting in the 1970’s; see
[goel1972method]
.
Daniel J Thompson (2017-02-03 10:17:42 -0800 -0800):
David Koslicki and I wrote a paper in this spirit; see
[MR3294965]
.
The question of finding “some potential” is exactly the right one. We obtained
a locally constant potential (depending on 3 symbols, thus giving a weight to
each nucleotide triplet) by training computationally against the data set
provided by the human genome. Of course, when Bowen wrote this note, neither
this data set nor the computational power required to train against it were
available. We also experimented with using the GC-content of each nucleotide
triplet to determine a potential function. We discuss different approaches to
selecting a potential in sections 3.7 and 3.8 of our paper. Speaking
personally, I find it fascinating that Bowen considered the possibility of
using the theory of equilibrium states in genomic analysis. I am well aware of
the great debt that the majority of my work owes to Bowen - I was unaware that
this idea was anticipated by him too!
shub (2017-07-10 10:17:54 -0700 -0700):
In Krick,Teresa, David A. Shub, Nina Verstraete, Diego U. Ferreiro, Leonardo
G. Alonso, Michael Shub and Ignacio E.Sanchez,Amino acid metabolism conflicts
with protein diversity,Molecular Biology and Evolution, Advance Access, August
18,2014 we show that maximizing the entropy minus the energetic cost of using
amino acids with a given frequency gives a good fit to actual amino acid
frequency. I was also unaware of Rufus’ suggestion in this direction.
Comments
by “codon” maybe he is referring to genetics; there was work done on codon frequencies in genetics starting in the 1970’s; see [goel1972method] .
David Koslicki and I wrote a paper in this spirit; see [MR3294965] . The question of finding “some potential” is exactly the right one. We obtained a locally constant potential (depending on 3 symbols, thus giving a weight to each nucleotide triplet) by training computationally against the data set provided by the human genome. Of course, when Bowen wrote this note, neither this data set nor the computational power required to train against it were available. We also experimented with using the GC-content of each nucleotide triplet to determine a potential function. We discuss different approaches to selecting a potential in sections 3.7 and 3.8 of our paper. Speaking personally, I find it fascinating that Bowen considered the possibility of using the theory of equilibrium states in genomic analysis. I am well aware of the great debt that the majority of my work owes to Bowen - I was unaware that this idea was anticipated by him too!
In Krick,Teresa, David A. Shub, Nina Verstraete, Diego U. Ferreiro, Leonardo G. Alonso, Michael Shub and Ignacio E.Sanchez,Amino acid metabolism conflicts with protein diversity,Molecular Biology and Evolution, Advance Access, August 18,2014 we show that maximizing the entropy minus the energetic cost of using amino acids with a given frequency gives a good fit to actual amino acid frequency. I was also unaware of Rufus’ suggestion in this direction.