On the splicing operation Original Research Article

We propose here a systematic formal study of the splicing operation introduced by Head as a model of recombinant behavior of DNA. We consider both simple and iterated splicing, with respect to a finite or an infinite set of splicing rules, in the latter case the whole set of rules constituting a regular language. Relations between these operations and usual operations with languages are investigated, as well as the closure of Chomsky language families under these splicing operations. A series of open problems are formulated too.