Strand-biased gene distribution in bacteria is related to both horizontal gene transfer and strand-biased nucleotide composition.

ABSTRACT: Although strand-biased gene distribution (SGD) was described some two decades ago, the underlying molecular mechanisms and their relationship remain elusive. Its facets include, but are not limited to, the degree of biases, the strand-preference of genes, and the influence of background nucleotide composition variations. Using a dataset composed of 364 non-redundant bacterial genomes, we sought to illustrate our current understanding of SGD. First, when we divided the collection of bacterial genomes into non-polC and polC groups according to their possession of DnaE isoforms that correlate closely with taxonomy, the SGD of the polC group stood out more significantly than that of the non-polC group. Second, when examining horizontal gene transfer, coupled with gene functional conservation (

SUBMITTER: Wu H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5054707 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature