Discriminant analysis of promoter regions in Escherichia coli sequences

We have previously developed a general method based on the statistical technique of discriminant analysis to predict splice junctions in eukaryotic mRNA sequences [Nakata, K., Kanehisa, M. and DeLisi, C. (1985) Nucleic Acids Res., 13, 5327-5340]. In order to evaluate further applicability of this method, we now analyze the promoter region of Escherichia coli sequences. The attributes used for discrimination include the accuracy of consensus sequence patterns measured by the perceptron algorithm, the thermal stability map, the base composition and the Calladine-Dickerson rules for helical twist angle, roll angle, torsion angle and propeller twist angle. When applied to selected E. coli sequences in the GenBank database, the method correctly identifies 75% of the true promoter regions.