So we can sequence DNA, and we can compare the amino acids to match other strands, but how do we know it means anything bordering on similarity of what it actually represents?
I’m a programmer so the best I can give an analogy to is binary, I guess. Just because you have a bunch of 0s and 1s that match from one part of the machine to another doesn’t mean it acts the same among the “thing” it is a part of when compared to the other.
How do we know our DNA does with a level of certainty to say “this organism is similar to that one?”
In: 0
So the binary bits of 1 and 0 would be analogous to a single DNA nucleotide: A,C,G, or T.
Individually, they don’t do much. So in computers, you group 8 of them together to make a byte (let’s use ASCII as an example). In biology, we group 3 nucleotides together to make a codon.
We’ve standardized binary codes to encode different ASCII characters. Life has standardized codons to encode individual amino acids, which are chained together to form proteins. Proteins do just about everything in the human body. Biologists have determined that the codons are generally universally encoded across all living things. (Google “protein translation” for more info).
This means we can look at the DNA code, and know what the amino acid sequence in a protein. We can use that information to infer its structure and function.
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