It's clearly designed to look like a strand of RNA. I don't have any impression that it's anything more than a symbol, although it did show up in the Sureshes' displays of genetic data, a la the Matrix. But it's shown up intentionally throughout history, at least as far back as Hiro's sword (although katana hilts are not integral to the sword and are commonly replaced without any concern over the integrity of the sword, which is something that bothered me about the sword repairman scene).