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The effect of expression levels on codon usage in Plasmodium falciparum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2004

L. PEIXOTO ,
V. FERNÁNDEZ  and
H. MUSTO
L. PEIXOTO
Affiliation:
Laboratorio de Organización y Evolución del Genoma, Facultad de Ciencias, Iguá 4225, Montevideo 11400, Uruguay Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, Montevideo, Uruguay
V. FERNÁNDEZ
Affiliation:
Cátedra de Inmunología, Facultad de Química, Montevideo, Uruguay
H. MUSTO
Affiliation:
Laboratorio de Organización y Evolución del Genoma, Facultad de Ciencias, Iguá 4225, Montevideo 11400, Uruguay
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Abstract

The usage of alternative synonymous codons in the completely sequenced, extremely A+T-rich parasite Plasmodium falciparum was studied. Confirming previous studies obtained with less than 3% of the total genes recently described, we found that A- and U-ending triplets predominate but translational selection increases the frequency of a subset of codons in highly expressed genes. However, some new results come from the analysis of the complete sequence. First, there is more variation in GC3 than previously described; second, the effect of natural selection acting at the level of translation has been analysed with real expression data at 4 different stages and third, we found that highly expressed proteins increment the frequency of energetically less expensive amino acids. The implications of these results are discussed.

Keywords

Plasmodiumcodon usagetranslational selectioncorrespondence analysismutational biasoptimal codonsproteome
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 128 , Issue 3 , March 2004 , pp. 245 - 251
Copyright
2004 Cambridge University Press

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