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Essentiality, not expressiveness, drives gene-strand bias in bacteria

Nature Genetics volume 34, pages 377–378 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Preferential positioning of bacterial genes in the leading strand was thought to result from selection to avoid high head-on collision rates between DNA and RNA polymerases. Here we show, however, that in Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli, essentiality (the transcript product), not expressiveness (the collision rate), selectively drives the biased gene distribution.

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Figure 1: Distribution of genes between the leading (dark gray) and the lagging (light gray) strands of the genome of B. subtilis (a) and E. coli (b).

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Blanchard, F. Dionísio and F. Taddei for comments and criticisms on the manuscript and the scientists who disrupted and studied all the genes of the B. subtilis genome, in particular those who made the enterprise happen: S. D. Ehrlich, F. Kunst, N. Ogasawara and H. Yoshikawa.

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Affiliations

  1. Unité GGB, URA 2171, Institut Pasteur, 28 rue Dr. Roux, Paris, 75015, France

    Eduardo P C Rocha & Antoine Danchin

  2. Atelier de BioInformatique, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 12 rue Cuvier, Paris, 75005, France

    Eduardo P C Rocha

  3. HKU-Pasteur Research Centre, Dexter HC Man Building, 8, Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

    Antoine Danchin

Authors
  1. Eduardo P C Rocha
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  2. Antoine Danchin
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Correspondence to Eduardo P C Rocha.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Rocha, E., Danchin, A. Essentiality, not expressiveness, drives gene-strand bias in bacteria. Nat Genet 34, 377–378 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1209

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