The literature on recoding is scattered, so this superb book ?lls a need by prov- ing up-to-date, comprehensive, authoritative reviews of the many kinds of recoding phenomena. Between 1961 and 1966 my colleagues and I deciphered the genetic code in Escherichia coli and showed that the genetic code is the same in E. coli, Xenopus laevis, and guinea pig tissues. These results showed that the code has been c- served during evolution and strongly suggested that the code appeared very early during biological evolution, that all forms of life on earth descended from a c- mon ancestor, and thus that...

Once thought to be just a messenger that allows genetic information encoded in DNA to direct the formation of proteins, RNA (ribonucleic acid) is now known to be a highly versatile molecule that has multiple roles in cells. It can function as an enzyme, scaffold various subcellular structures, and regulate gene expression through a variety of mechanisms, as well as act as a key component of the protein synthesis and splicing machinery. Perhaps most interestingly, increasing evidence indicates that RNA preceded DNA as the hereditary material and played a crucial role in the early evolution of...

The literature on recoding is scattered, so this superb book ?lls a need by prov- ing up-to-date, comprehensive, authoritative reviews of the many kinds of recoding phenomena. Between 1961 and 1966 my colleagues and I deciphered the genetic code in Escherichia coli and showed that the genetic code is the same in E. coli, Xenopus laevis, and guinea pig tissues. These results showed that the code has been c- served during evolution and strongly suggested that the code appeared very early during biological evolution, that all forms of life on earth descended from a c- mon ancestor, and thus that...