A signal peptide is a short (5-30 amino acids long) peptide present at the N-terminus of proteins. It functions like a postal address label on an envelope by targeting the proteins for secretion. However, nobody yet understands the relationship between the amino acid sequences and the address. Clearly, this could be strong evidence for intelligent design if we could crack this code. Therefore, I would like to know if anyone is working on computational/mathematical techniques that could solve this enigma.
I really dont agree with your view that these sequences might provide evidence of intellegent design, it just means that it is complicated and we haven't worked out how to understand it.
Here is our go are explaining mitochondrial targeting sequence diversity
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0067938
Because, as with the digital code of DNA, the signal peptide address code has a direct parallel in world of information processing. When I first came across the genetic code, it was obvious to me that this genes were based on the same principle of asychronous communication that we see in digital machinery. I would therefore predict that if the signal peptide address code were deciphered, it would point to design rather than to blind chance and necessity conspiring together to provide an illusion.
Yes, Artur, I do think the genetic code indicates intelligent design and that it has a direct counterpart in the world of digital encoding technology. My hypothesis is that there is a code or convention used in the design of signal peptides that remains for us to discover and, if we did do so, it would help solve the mystery of the relationship between protein sequence and function - in this case the targetting of the protein.
Yes, I pubish papers on evolution but I don't see intelligent design as incompatible with known evolutionary mechanisms. The digital code of DNA could certainly not have arisen either by chance or some optimizing process (only after it was first established perhaps). The signal peptide code, too, would had to have been there from the outset or else proteins would have been sent to the wrong parts of the cell and the organism would likely not have functioned properly. We know that signal peptides themselves evolve, but this is mostly due to compensatory mutations for prior neutral changes, If you read my papers, I go to great lengths to point out the evidence for the limits as to what evolution by natural selection (or indeed random drift) can actually achieve,
FYI, I am working on a paper that will present new research providing strong statistical evidence that the sequences of proteins are the product of design, not necessity. Of course, I can't be too open about my interpretations due to extensive censorship in the peer review system against "unorthodox" ideas in science. Shame really.
I am not pretending to be anything. You can study evolution - change over time - while still realizing that major changes require more than just random mutations. The reason you can't see the signature of design in life is probably because you don't know what it would look like. That is why someone with an engineering background has an advantage over a biologist.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Bioinformatics
- Bioinformatics and Computational Biology