title: Compositional properties of homologous coding sequences from plants
abstract: In this work, we investigated (1) the compositional distributions of all available nuclear coding sequences (and of their three codon positions) of six dicots and four Gramineae; this considerably expanded our knowledge about the differences previously seen between these two groups of plants; (2) the compositional correlations of homologous genes from dicots and from Gramineae, as well as from both groups; all correlations were characterized by very good coefficients, with slopes close to unity in the former two cases and very high in the last; (3) the compositional transition that accompanied the emergence of Gramineae from an ancestral monocot; (4) the compositional correlations between exons and introns, which were very good in Gramineae, but only poor to good in dicots; and (5) the compositional profiles of homologous genes from angiosperms, which were characterized by a series of peaks (exons) and valleys (introns) separated by 15-20% GC. The conservative and transitional modes of compositional evolution in plant genes and their general implications are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Genetique Moleculaire, Institut Jacques Monod, 2 Place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Carels
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hatey
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Jabbari
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bernardi