https://www.abbs.info e-mail: [email protected]
ISSN 0582-9879 Acta Biochim Biophys Sin 2004, 36(1): 1–10 CN 31-1300/Q
Understanding
SARS with the New Kind of Science
Da-Wei LI1,2, Yu-Xi PAN1,2, Yun DUAN2,1, Zhen-De
HUNG1, Ming-Qing XU2,1, and Lin HE2,1*
(1Bio-X
Life Science Research Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030,
China;2Institute for Nutritional science, the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China )
Abstract
Stepping acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS),
severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) as another type of disease has been
threatening mankind since late last year. Many scientists worldwide are making
great efforts to study the etiology of this disease with different approaches.
13 species of SARS virus have been sequenced. However, most people still
largely rely on the traditional methods with some disadvantages. In this work,
we used Wolfram approach to study the relationship among SARS viruses and
between SARS viruses and other types of viruses, the effect of variations on
the whole genome and the advantages in the analysis of SARS based on this novel
approach. As a result, the similarities between SARS viruses and other coronaviruses
are not really higher than those between SARS viruses and non-coronaviruses.
Key
words genome sequence; SARS; visualization; Wolfram approach
In this work, we tried to understand the
pathogenesis of SARS, the world’s threat [1–14] using a complete novel approach
[15–20], or Wolfram approach which was systematically described in the book
entitled “A New Kind of Science” in 2001 and has drawn extensive
attention in the world [15]. In contrast with the traditional methods of DNA
sequence comparison, Wolfram approach was based on the concept that simple
rules are able to produce highly complicated behaviour such as dynamically viewing alterations on visualization,
including transposition, insertion, deletion and duplication, etc., in a whole
genome scale, and even in a single base scale when the base precisely located.
Furthermore, it has become possible to make progress on a remarkable range of
fundamental issues of lives that have never been successfully studied by any of
the existing sciences based on traditional mathematical rules, which are
limited in exploring the complex behavior in a typical biological system. For
example, the evolutionary theory cannot really or completely explain the origin
of complexity of biological system [15]. Research and speculation in living
organisms at a molecular level that was normally neglected by Wolfram, have
little success for the explanation of complexity in lives.
With
Wolfram approach-based method, we explored both the simple rules and a special
rule from the 256 rules suggested by Wolfram [15] to avoid traditional
intuition that the behaviour must be simple if the rule for a program is
simple. This is not true from the data demonstrated by both Wolfram’s work and
our own work. The remarkably simple rule can actually capture the essential
mechanisms responsible for complex phenomena in living organisms.
In
order to gain an insight into SARS, we analyzed DNA sequences of different
viruses in detail by the simple rules, initial conditions and highly complex
behaviour of the final images were studied visually.
Materials
and Methods
Sequences
of SARS viruses and other related viruses
All studied sequences including 13 SARS
viruses were downloaded from free database of National Center for Biotechnology
Information (NCBI):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=nucleotide&cmd=search&term=SARS.
The genomes of SARS viruses in Fig. 1 are as
follows:
SARS
BJ01, partial genome;
SARS
BJ02, partial genome;
SARS
BJ03, partial genome;
SARS
BJ04, partial genome;
SARS
CUHK-W1, complete genome;
SARS
GZ01, partial genome;
SARS
HKU-39849, complete genome;
SARS
TOR2, complete genome;
SARS
Urbani, complete genome;
SARS
coronavirus CUHK-Su10, complete genome;
SARS
coronavirus isolate SIN2774 complete genome;
SARS
coronavirus TW1, complete genome;
SARS
coronavirus, complete genome.
