Degeneracy and complexity in biological systems
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- 6 November 2001
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Vol. 98 (24) , 13763-13768
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.231499798
Abstract
Degeneracy, the ability of elements that are structurally different to perform the same function or yield the same output, is a well known characteristic of the genetic code and immune systems. Here, we point out that degeneracy is a ubiquitous biological property and argue that it is a feature of complexity at genetic, cellular, system, and population levels. Furthermore, it is both necessary for, and an inevitable outcome of, natural selection.Keywords
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