title: Comparative study of overlapping genes in bacteria, with special reference to Rickettsia prowazekii and Rickettsia conorii.
abstract: Overlapping genes have been proposed as a means of achieving genome reduction by compressing the maximum amount of information in limited sequence space. In this report, comparative analyses of the overlapping genes of genomes of nine bacteria with different lifestyles were performed. The results clearly suggest that overlapping genes may be a result of evolutionary pressure to minimize genome size. The genomes of two closely related obligatory intracellular parasites - Rickettsia prowazekii and Rickettsia conorii - were investigated further. Detailed analyses of these two genomes revealed that mutations at the ends of coding regions and elimination of intergenic DNA are the main forces that determine overlapping of genes.
authors.affiliation: BioInformatics Institute, Matrix, 30 Biopolis Street, Singapore.
authors.forename: Kishore R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Sakharkar
authors.affiliation: Nanyang Centre for Supercomputing and Visualization, School of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
authors.forename: Meena K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Sakharkar
authors.affiliation: BioInformatics Institute, Matrix, 30 Biopolis Street, Singapore.
authors.forename: Chandra
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Verma
authors.affiliation: Human Genome Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore 117597.
authors.forename: Vincent T K
authors.initials: VTK
authors.lastname: Chow
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D020635:Buchnera / Q000235:genetics; D002689:Chlamydia / Q000235:genetics; D003013:Clostridium / Q000235:genetics; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D005807:Genes, Overlapping; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D009174:Mycoplasma / Q000235:genetics; D020114:Rickettsia conorii / Q000235:genetics*; D012283:Rickettsia prowazekii / Q000235:genetics*; D012641:Selection, Genetic