Relative amino acid composition signatures of organisms and environments.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Identifying organism-environment interactions at the molecular level is crucial to understanding how organisms adapt to and change the chemical and molecular landscape of their habitats. In this work we investigated whether relative amino acid compositions could be used as a molecular signature of an environment and whether such a signature could also be observed at the level of the cellular amino acid composition of the microorganisms that inhabit that environment.

Methodologies/principal findings

To address these questions we collected and analyzed environmental amino acid determinations from the literature, and estimated from complete genomic sequences the global relative amino acid abundances of organisms that are cognate to the different types of environment.

SUBMITTER: Moura A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3808408 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature