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arXiv · 1309.4441

DNA viewed as an out-of-equilibrium structure

A. Provata·C. Nicolis·G. Nicolis
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Abstract

The complexity of the primary structure of human DNA is explored using methods from nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, dynamical systems theory and information theory. The use of chi-square tests shows that DNA cannot be described as a low order Markov chain of order up to $r=6$. Although detailed balance seems to hold at the level of purine-pyrimidine notation it fails when all four basepairs are considered, suggesting spatial asymmetry and irreversibility. Furthermore, the block entropy does not increase linearly with the block size, reflecting the long range nature of the correlations in the human genomic sequences. To probe locally the spatial structure of the chain we study the exit distances from a specific symbol, the distribution of recurrence distances and the Hurst exponent, all of which show power law tails and long range characteristics. These results suggest that human DNA can be viewed as a non-equilibrium structure maintained in its state through interactions with a constantly changing environment. Based solely on the exit distance distribution accounting for the nonequilibrium statistics and using the Monte Carlo rejection sampling method we construct a model DNA sequence. This method allows to keep all long range and short range statistical characteristics of the original sequence. The model sequence presents the same characteristic exponents as the natural DNA but fails to capture point-to-point details.

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A. Provata, C. Nicolis, G. Nicolis. 2013-09-17. DNA viewed as an out-of-equilibrium structure. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.89.052105

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