Linguistic Features of Noncoding DNA Sequences

R. N. Mantegna; S. V. Buldyrev; A. L. Goldberger; S. Havlin; C. K. Peng; M. Simons; H. E. Stanley

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.73.3169

Linguistic Features of Noncoding DNA Sequences

R. N. Mantegna, S. V. Buldyrev, A. L. Goldberger, S. Havlin, C. K. Peng, M. Simons, and H. E. Stanley

Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 3169 – Published 5 December 1994

Abstract

We extend the Zipf approach to analyzing linguistic texts to the statistical study of DNA base pair sequences and find that the noncoding regions are more similar to natural languages than the coding regions. We also adapt the Shannon approach to quantifying the "redundancy" of a linguistic text in terms of a measurable entropy function, and demonstrate that noncoding regions in eukaryotes display a smaller entropy and larger redundancy than coding regions, supporting the possibility that noncoding regions of DNA may carry biological information.

Received 26 April 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.73.3169

Authors & Affiliations

R. N. Mantegna¹, S. V. Buldyrev¹, A. L. Goldberger², S. Havlin¹, C. K. Peng², M. Simons², and H. E. Stanley¹

¹Center for Polymer Studies and Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215
²Cardiovascular Division, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02215