Transfer RNA gene arrangement and codon usage in vertebrate mitochondrial genomes: a new insight into gene order conservation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Mitochondrial (mt) gene arrangement has been highly conserved among vertebrates from jawless fishes to mammals for more than 500 million years. It remains unclear, however, whether such long-term persistence is a consequence of some constraints on the gene order.

Results

Based on the analysis of codon usage and tRNA gene positions, we suggest that tRNA gene order of the typical vertebrate mt-genomes may be important for their translational efficiency. The vertebrate mt-genome encodes 2 rRNA, 22 tRNA, and 13 transmembrane proteins consisting mainly of hydrophobic domains. We found that the tRNA genes specifying the hydrophobic residues were positioned close to the control region (CR), where the transcription efficiency is estimated to be relatively high. Using 47 v

SUBMITTER: Satoh TP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2996975 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature