title: Trends of amino acid usage in the proteins from the unicellular parasite Giardia lamblia.
abstract: Correspondence analysis of amino acid frequencies was applied to 75 complete coding sequences from the unicellular parasite Giardia lamblia, and it was found that three major factors influence the variability of amino acidic composition of proteins. The first trend strongly correlated with (a) the cysteine content and (b) the mean weight of the amino acids used in each protein. The second trend correlated with the global levels of hydropathy and aromaticity of each protein. Both axes might be related with the defense of the parasite to oxygen free radicals. Finally, the third trend correlated with the expressivity of each gene, indicating that in G. lamblia highly expressed sequences display a tendency to preferentially use a subset of the total amino acids.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Organización y Evolución del Genoma, Sección Bioquímica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la Republica de Uruguay, Iguá 4225, Montevideo, 11400, Uruguay.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Garat
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Musto
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D003545:Cysteine / Q000378:metabolism; D016829:Giardia lamblia / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D008970:Molecular Weight; D015800:Protozoan Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D015800:Protozoan Proteins; D003545:Cysteine