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Published on: February 5, 2015
The relationship among gene expression, folding free energy and codon usage bias in Escherichia coli
1MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Taking advantage of microarray data in Escherichia coli genome, the relationship among mRNA expression levels, folding free energy and codon usage bias are investigated. Our results indicate that mRNA expression is correlated to the stability of mRNA secondary structure and the codon usage bias. The decrease of the stability of mRNA structure contributes to the increase of mRNA expression. There is a negative correlation between codon adaptation index (CAI) and mRNA expression in genes with less stable structure. The relationship between the stability of mRNA structure and mRNA half-life indicates the stability of mRNA structure is different from mRNA half-life.
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