Codon usage bias as a function of generation time and life expectancy.

ABSTRACT: It has recently been demonstrated that human natural codon usage bias is optimized towards a higher buffering capacity to mutations (measured as the tendency of single point mutations in a DNA sequence to yield the same or similar amino acids) compared to random sequences. In this work, we investigate this phenomenon further by analyzing the natural DNA of four different species (human, mouse, zebrafish and fruit fly) to determine whether such a tolerance to mutations is correlated with the life span and age of sexual maturation for the corresponding organisms. We also propose a new measure to quantify the buffering capacity of a DNA sequence to mutations that takes into account the observed mutation rates within every genome and the effect of the corresponding mutation.Our results suggest

SUBMITTER: Mahdi RN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3283889 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature