REVERSIBLE DNA CODES OVER F16 + uF16 + υF16 + uυF16

Abstract

In this paper we study the structure of specific linear codes called DNA codes. The first attempts on studying such codes have been proposed over four element rings which are naturally matched with DNA four letters. Later, double (pair) DNA strings or more general k-DNA strings called k-mers have been matched with some special rings and codes over such rings with specific properties are studied. However, these matchings in general are not straight-forward and because of the fact that the reverse of the codewords (k-mers) need to exist in the code, the matching problem is difficult and it is referred to as the reversibility problem. Here, 8-mers (DNA 8-bases) are matched with the ring elements of R-16 = F-16 + uF(16) + upsilon F-16 + u upsilon F-16. Furthermore, cyclic codes over the ring R-16 where the multiplication is taken to be noncommutative with respect to an automorphism theta are studied. The preference on the skewness is shown to be very useful and practical especially since this serves as a direct solution to the reversibility problem compared to the commutative approaches.