> When you look at the nature of DNA, it does more than simply act as code.

> It can edit and self-modify, self-assemble, self-replicate, it can turn genes on and off

Unless my knowledge of biology is very outdated or incomplete, all of those things you cited are done to DNA. They don't happen spontaneously.

DNA doesn't self-replicate, a whole bunch of enzymes come and actively copy it. Genes don't spontaneously turn on and off, some enzyme comes and attaches or removes a methyl group. DNA doesn't self-assemble, it is actively coiled around histones to form nucleosomes. Bacteria have a huge variety of enzymes for manipulating native and foreign DNA, they have their own CRISPR mechanisms.

I'm thinking more of early RNA and DNA life, where ideas like the RNA-world might have happened and applied. RNA can assemble, replicate, and catalyze to form deoxynucleosides in a proto-DNA, without "outside" work needing to happen from enzymes/proteins/etc.

Similarly, RNA and DNA "machines" could have existed before cellular life, in which genetic material self-assembled, transferred genes horizontally/vertically, etc, blurring the lines between genes as "code" and something else.

I think RNA (in particular, ribozymes) does those things.

But DNA is effectively separation of concerns: RNA systems evolved to RNA mediated systems with DNA as more inert and reliable storage and enzymes as more effective catalysts. Or so the RNA world hypothesis goes.

There are deoxyribozymes though are far less common than ribozymes. DNA aptamers may also meet your definition of reactions involving DNA but not acting upon DNA.