The Codon Usage of Lowly Expressed Genes Is Subject to Natural Selection.

ABSTRACT: Codon usage bias affects the genomes of organisms from all kingdoms of life and results from both background substitution biases and natural selection. Natural selection on codon usage to increase translation accuracy and efficiency has long been known to affect gene sequences. Such selection is stronger on highly, compared with lowly expressed genes, resulting in higher levels of codon bias within genes with higher expression levels. Additionally, selection on translation accuracy affects more strongly codons encoding conserved amino acids, since these will more often affect protein folding and/or function. By applying tests of selection on the gene sequences of the bacterium Escherichia coli, we demonstrate that both highly and lowly expressed genes display signals of selection on codon

SUBMITTER: Yannai A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5961134 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature