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| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Energy efficiency trade-offs drive nucleotide usage in transcribed regions |
| Creators Name: | Chen, W.H., Lu, G., Bork, P., Hu, S. and Lercher, M.J. |
| Abstract: | Efficient nutrient usage is a trait under universal selection. A substantial part of cellular resources is spent on making nucleotides. We thus expect preferential use of cheaper nucleotides especially in transcribed sequences, which are often amplified thousand-fold compared with genomic sequences. To test this hypothesis, we derive a mutation-selection-drift equilibrium model for nucleotide skews (strand-specific usage of 'A' versus 'T' and 'G' versus 'C'), which explains nucleotide skews across 1,550 prokaryotic genomes as a consequence of selection on efficient resource usage. Transcription-related selection generally favours the cheaper nucleotides 'U' and 'C' at synonymous sites. However, the information encoded in mRNA is further amplified through translation. Due to unexpected trade-offs in the codon table, cheaper nucleotides encode on average energetically more expensive amino acids. These trade-offs apply to both strand-specific nucleotide usage and GC content, causing a universal bias towards the more expensive nucleotides 'A' and 'G' at non-synonymous coding sites. |
| Keywords: | Amino Acids, Bacteria, Base Composition, Base Pairing, Biological Evolution, Codon, Genetic Models, Genetic Selection, Genetic Transcription, Mutation, Nucleotides, Operon, Protein Biosynthesis, Thermodynamics |
| Source: | Nature Communications |
| ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
| Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
| Volume: | 7 |
| Page Range: | 11334 |
| Date: | 21 April 2016 |
| Official Publication: | https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11334 |
| PubMed: | View item in PubMed |
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