title: [Current status of theoretical studies on essential genes in microbes].
abstract: Essential genes are indispensable for the survival of an organism in optimal conditions. Recently, study on essential gene is becoming a hot topic of microbiology, genomics, and bioinformatics. This paper described the experiments that determined essential genes in some microbes and the theoretical researches on essential genes were reviewed. The major content contained comparison of essential genes and non-essential genes based on information on evolutionary conservation and sequence composition, and in silico prediction of essential genes, and analysis of the chromosomal distributions of essential genes. Finally, related progresses were concluded and the open problems were pointed out.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China. yyn0452@sohu.com
authors.forename: Yuan-Nong
authors.initials: YN
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Feng-Biao
authors.initials: FB
authors.lastname: Guo
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020043:Genes, Essential / Q000502:physiology*