Co-orientation of replication and transcription preserves genome integrity.

ABSTRACT: In many bacteria, there is a genome-wide bias towards co-orientation of replication and transcription, with essential and/or highly-expressed genes further enriched co-directionally. We previously found that reversing this bias in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis slows replication elongation, and we proposed that this effect contributes to the evolutionary pressure selecting the transcription-replication co-orientation bias. This selection might have been based purely on selection for speedy replication; alternatively, the slowed replication might actually represent an average of individual replication-disruption events, each of which is counter-selected independently because genome integrity is selected. To differentiate these possibilities and define the precise forces driving this aspect

SUBMITTER: Srivatsan A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2797598 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature