Essentiality, conservation, evolutionary pressure and codon bias in bacterial genomes

• Published in: Gene Vol. 663; pp. 178 - 188
• Main Authors: Dilucca, Maddalena, Cimini, Giulio, Giansanti, Andrea
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 15.07.2018
• Subjects: Bacteria; Bacteria - genetics; Base Sequence; Codon bias; codon usage; Computational Biology - methods; Conservation; Conserved Sequence; Escherichia coli; Essentiality; Evolution, Molecular; Genes, Essential; Genome, Bacterial; metabolism; natural selection; selection pressure; Selection, Genetic; Selective pressure; synthetic biology; Nc; RSCU; Selective pressure; Essentiality; Codon bias; DEG; Conservation; Bacteria; COG; ERI; E. coli; DAMBE

Essential genes constitute the core of genes which cannot be mutated too much nor lost along the evolutionary history of a species. Natural selection is expected to be stricter on essential genes and on conserved (highly shared) genes, than on genes that are either nonessential or peculiar to a sing...