Heterogeneity in Synonymous Codon Usage among Genes of Diverse Bacterial Genomes

摘要

It has become clear that in most bacterial species there is considerable heterogeneity in codon usage among genes, and the codon usage of any gene is thought to reflect a balance between the forces of mutation, selection, and random genetic drift. Thestrength and direction of these forces vary for different species, depending on their lifestyles. In this study, we investigated the level of synonymous codon usage heterogeneity among genes of diverse bacterial species with different genome compositions.