Commentary

Uncertainty principle of genetic information in a living cell

Pierluigi Strippoli¹ , Silvia Canaider¹ , Francesco Noferini² , Pietro D'Addabbo^1,3 , Lorenza Vitale¹ , Federica Facchin¹ , Luca Lenzi¹ , Raffaella Casadei¹ , Paolo Carinci¹ , Maria Zannotti¹ and Flavia Frabetti¹

¹  Center for Research in Molecular Genetics "Fondazione CARISBO", Department of Histology, Embriology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna (BO), Italy

²  Department of Physics, University of Bologna, Via Irnerio 46, 40126 Bologna (BO), Italy; Sezione INFN, Bologna, Italy

³  Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia, University of Bari, 70126 Bari, Italy

author email corresponding author email

Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling 2005, 2:40doi:10.1186/1742-4682-2-40

Published:	30 September 2005

Abstract

Background

Formal description of a cell's genetic information should provide the number of DNA molecules in that cell and their complete nucleotide sequences. We pose the formal problem: can the genome sequence forming the genotype of a given living cell be known with absolute certainty so that the cell's behaviour (phenotype) can be correlated to that genetic information? To answer this question, we propose a series of thought experiments.

Results

We show that the genome sequence of any actual living cell cannot physically be known with absolute certainty, independently of the method used. There is an associated uncertainty, in terms of base pairs, equal to or greater than μs (where μ is the mutation rate of the cell type and s is the cell's genome size).

Conclusion

This finding establishes an "uncertainty principle" in genetics for the first time, and its analogy with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics is discussed. The genetic information that makes living cells work is thus better represented by a probabilistic model rather than as a completely defined object.