title: Factors influencing synonymous codon and amino acid usage biases in Mimivirus.
abstract: Synonymous codon and amino acid usage biases have been investigated in 903 Mimivirus protein-coding genes in order to understand the architecture and evolution of Mimivirus genome. As expected for an AT-rich genome, third codon positions of the synonymous codons of Mimivirus carry mostly A or T bases. It was found that codon usage bias in Mimivirus genes is dictated both by mutational pressure and translational selection. Evidences show that four factors such as mean molecular weight (MMW), hydropathy, aromaticity and cysteine content are mostly responsible for the variation of amino acid usage in Mimivirus proteins. Based on our observation, we suggest that genes involved in translation, DNA repair, protein folding, etc., have been laterally transferred to Mimivirus a long ago from living organism and with time these genes acquire the codon usage pattern of other Mimivirus genes under selection pressure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, Haldia Institute of Technology, Haldia, India.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sau
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sau
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Mandal
authors.forename: T C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Ghosh
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000235:genetics*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003062:Codon / Q000235:genetics*; D019295:Computational Biology; D004267:DNA Viruses / Q000235:genetics*; D015967:Gene Expression Regulation, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D008970:Molecular Weight; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D003062:Codon