The Principles of the Origin and Evolution of Genomes

Abstract

Cell genomes are the essential components of molecular genetic regulatory systems (MGRS) and physical carriers of the hereditary memory of cells. The dimensions of genomes are related to their potential information capacity, i.e. the number and total length of genes that they can contain. On the other hand, the actual information capacity of genomes does not always correspond to the potential capacity. In the simplest case, by the information density of a genome we mean the proportion of its nucleotides involved in the coding of molecular properties (those within genes, as well as punctuation marks and other functionally essential parts). Let us consider some regularities of the correspondence between the dimensions of genomes and their information density.