Separating the effects of mutation and selection in producing DNA skew in bacterial chromosomes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Many bacterial chromosomes display nucleotide asymmetry, or skew, between the leading and lagging strands of replication. Mutational differences between these strands result in an overall pattern of skew that is centered about the origin of replication. Such a pattern could also arise from selection coupled with a bias for genes coded on the leading strand. The relative contributions of selection and mutation in producing compositional skew are largely unknown.

Results

We describe a model to quantify the contribution of mutational differences between the leading and lagging strands in producing replication-induced skew. When the origin and terminus of replication are known, the model can be used to estimate the relative accumulation of G over C and of A over T on

SUBMITTER: Morton RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2099444 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature