Split-Genes Discussions

Friends:

Last spring I announced a new theory on the origin of life and its disparity on earth by the title "Independent Birth of Organisms." Subsequently, during spring and summer, an extensive discussion went on in some of the news groups on evolution, molecular biology and paleontology.

One of the major bottlenecks that the conventional evolution theory has to go through is that it cannot show how even one contiguous gene of the assumed original ancestral prokaryote-like cell could originate probabilistically on earth. Furthermore, only if contiguous genes could originate in the first place, could the introns be inserted into them later. I have countered that assumption, and have shown that it is the split-genes that are typically eukaryote-like that originated directly in the random primordial DNA sequences wherein they occurred essentially fully-formed, and that the eukaryote-like cells were formed directly from the genomes that assembled from these genes.

If this is true, then we should be able to show that the split-genes typical of eukaryotes could easily and abundantly occur within a reasonably small amount of random primordial DNA material. I have provided extensive computational simulation experiments in my book "Independent Birth of Organisms," demonstrating this premise. Now Jeff Mattox, who was a strong supporter of my theory during the internet discussions last summer, has made available a web site, where users can interactively search for any given "gene" in a reasonably short random DNA sequence. The gene will be in split form, and you will search for many different exons in pieces, just as they occur in a typical eukaryotic gene. The results will demonstrate to you that finding such a gene in a short random DNA sequence is very easy. In fact it will show that almost any gene that you query for can be found within the same, comparatively very short random DNA sequence. The search engine provides easy statistics and some visual graphics, easy to understand. Due to computational limitations, the search engine uses relatively short "exons" of 10-nt or less, but the results for larger exons would differ only in scale. Also, each 10 nt invariant DNA sequence is equivalent to an exon sequence of 200 nucleotides with codon degeneracy and amino acid degeneracy incorporated into it. Complete instructions and explanations are provided on the web site.

I am sure that this will provide a ground for further discussion on the origin of the structure of genes that directly pertain to the origin of life and organisms. I invite you to use this program, and to analyze the extremely high probability of the occurrence of split genes in random primordial DNA material, as opposed to the extreme improbability of contiguous prokaryote-like genes.

The web site that contains the exon search engine:

If you would like further information and analysis as to "Why are split genes easier to find?" please look at:

Thank you very much,

Periannan Senapathy

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