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by gravelc 1301 days ago
You can't present it as computer science concepts because it's not computer science.

For example, the central dogma of DNA transcribed to RNA translated to protein seems simple, but it's not.

In almost every instance, there are vague 'rules' and many many exceptions to these rules. For example, often coding regions in genes start with an ATG, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes splice sites (where the non-coding parts of transcripts called introns are chopped out) can be predicted, but a portion of the transcripts are not spliced at predicted sites for no obvious reason. Sometimes the predictions are just wrong. Sometimes the generated proteins are modified at specific locations which impacts their function, but again, sometimes not. Even whether the gene itself is 'switched on' (i.e. able to be transcribed) is impacted by many many things, such as unidentified transcription factors, or whether the chromosomal location itself is accessible or not. There are many many other things that impact the process.

There is no simple underlying concept as the system is not designed, it evolved and is quite different among different organisms, and even in different tissues or timepoints in the same organism. As long as it works and provides enough benefit to avoid negative selection, that's enough.

It's a mess, which makes it interesting.