Error Catastrophe - Applications of The Theory

Applications of The Theory

Some viruses such as polio or hepatitis C operate very close to the critical mutation rate (i.e. the largest q that L will allow). Drugs have been created to increase the mutation rate of the viruses in order to push them over the critical boundary so that they lose self identity. However, given the criticism of the basic assumption of the mathematical model, this approach is problematic.

The result introduces a Catch-22 mystery for biologists: in general, large genomes are required for accurate replication (high replication rates are achieved by the help of enzymes), but a large genome requires a high accuracy rate q to persist. Which comes first and how does it happen? An illustration of the difficulty involved is L can only be 100 if q' is 0.99 - a very small string length in terms of genes.