🔗 Eigen's Paradox

🔗 Evolutionary biology 🔗 Molecular Biology 🔗 Molecular Biology/Genetics

In evolutionary biology and population genetics, the error threshold (or critical mutation rate) is a limit on the number of base pairs a self-replicating molecule may have before mutation will destroy the information in subsequent generations of the molecule. The error threshold is crucial to understanding "Eigen's paradox".

The error threshold is a concept in the origins of life (abiogenesis), in particular of very early life, before the advent of DNA. It is postulated that the first self-replicating molecules might have been small ribozyme-like RNA molecules. These molecules consist of strings of base pairs or "digits", and their order is a code that directs how the molecule interacts with its environment. All replication is subject to mutation error. During the replication process, each digit has a certain probability of being replaced by some other digit, which changes the way the molecule interacts with its environment, and may increase or decrease its fitness, or ability to reproduce, in that environment.