TY - JOUR T1 - Cell code: the evolving arrangement of molecules that perpetuates life JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/149294 SP - 149294 AU - Antony M Jose Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/14/149294.abstract N2 - Our tremendous progress in understanding living things can mask our ignorance of the information needed to perpetuate life. As the basic unit of life, cells hold information in two distinct forms: in the stable DNA sequence that is faithfully replicated during cell divisions, and in the changing arrangement of molecules that return to a similar configuration at the start of each generation. These two interdependent stores of information coevolve while perpetuating an organism and together define the cell code of that organism. Although we do not yet know the entire cell code of any organism, recent developments suggest approaches to discover this code and the mechanisms by which it is reproduced in each generation. Clearly seeing the relationship between an organism and its cell code has implications for the origin and management of disease, evolution, and engineering life. ER -