May 24, 2007 — Even if you've never picked up an instrument, music is in your blood. Scientists have discovered a way to convert the DNA patterns that code for proteins into rhythmic piano notes that sound pleasant to a musician's ear.
The conversion method could not only make the otherwise daunting field of genomic coding more approachable to the general public and even children but could also provide scientists — including those who are vision-impaired — an entirely new way for analyzing proteins.
"It's a great teaching tool because everyone is familiar with music and it's a universal language," said research assistant Rie Takahashi, a microbiologist who studied classic piano for 14 years.
Takahashi developed the Gene2Music technique with microbiologist Jeffrey Miller at the University of California, Los Angeles, and published their results in the latest issue of Genome Biology 2007.
The team's initial study focused on the human thymidylate synthase A (ThyA), a protein involved in making and repairing DNA. Knowing the genetic pattern of a protein's amino acids (there are 20) is essential to understanding its function.
For example, some proteins have a pattern that causes them to repel water, while others attract water. That information that can ultimately help bioengineers develop more effective drugs.
It was too much to assign each of the 20 amino acids a unique note (the range would be two-and-a-half octaves), so Takahashi paired amino acids together into chords according to their water attracting or repelling capabilities. The result was 13 base notes, with the higher chords represented by the water-attracters and the lower keys represented by the water repellers.
