%0 Journal Article
%T Fidelity in Archaeal Information Processing
%A Bart de Koning
%A Fabian Blombach
%A Stan J. J. Brouns
%A John van der Oost
%J Archaea
%D 2010
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2010/960298
%X A key element during the flow of genetic information in living systems is fidelity. The accuracy of DNA replication influences the genome size as well as the rate of genome evolution. The large amount of energy invested in gene expression implies that fidelity plays a major role in fitness. On the other hand, an increase in fidelity generally coincides with a decrease in velocity. Hence, an important determinant of the evolution of life has been the establishment of a delicate balance between fidelity and variability. This paper reviews the current knowledge on quality control in archaeal information processing. While the majority of these processes are homologous in Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryotes, examples are provided of nonorthologous factors and processes operating in the archaeal domain. In some instances, evidence for the existence of certain fidelity mechanisms has been provided, but the factors involved still remain to be identified. 1. Introduction Francis Crick first announced his central dogma of molecular biology in 1958: the flow of sequential information that occurs in living cells, including replication of stored information (DNA), as well as expression of this information via messengers (mRNA) to functional proteins [1]. This dogma turned out to be a solid basis for molecular biology, although additional roles of (small) regulatory and metabolic RNA have been recognized more recently [2]. A key element during this transfer of genetic information is fidelity: the final accuracy depends on the combined error rates of the processes that constitute the whole chain. From the ancient RNA world on, replication fidelity has been a major limiting factor of the amount of information stored. It has been proposed that on average less than one error per replicated genome is tolerated, as higher error rates lead to a so-called ˇ°error catastropheˇ± with a fatal amount of progeny not being viable [3¨C5]. The same rule applies also for extant cellular life in which double-stranded DNA is used for storage of genetic information. The increase in genome size was allowed by the increased stability of DNA [6] and by considerably lower error rates in DNA replication [7]. One might expect a continuous selection towards the highest possible fidelity. However, a very high level of fidelity in replication will negatively affect both the genome's adaptation potential, and the replication velocity and costs, posing the risk of being out-competed by more efficient rival organisms [8, 9]. Overall, the delicate balance between fidelity and mutation rate is in itself a
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/archaea/2010/960298/