Open AccessThe DNA secondary structure of the Bacillus subtilis genome
Author(s) -
Tosato Valentina,
Gjuracic Kresimir,
Vlahovicek Kristian,
Pongor Sandor,
Danchin Antoine,
Bruschi Carlo V
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
fems microbiology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.899
H-Index - 151
eISSN - 1574-6968
pISSN - 0378-1097
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-6968.2003.tb11493.x
Subject(s) - bacillus subtilis , biology , orfs , genome , genetics , dna , circular bacterial chromosome , intergenic region , genomic organization , bacterial genome size , genome evolution , chromosome , genomic dna , dna replication , transcription (linguistics) , bacterial artificial chromosome , computational biology , gene , bacteria , peptide sequence , open reading frame , linguistics , philosophy
The entire genomic DNA sequence of the Gram‐positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis reported in the SubtiList database has been subjected in this work to a complete bioinformatic analysis of the potential formation of secondary DNA structures such as hairpins and bending. The most significant of these structures have been mapped with respect to their genomic location and compared to those structures already known to have a physiological role, such as the rho‐independent transcription terminators. The distribution of these structures along the bacterial chromosome shows two major features: (i) the concentration of the most curved DNA in the intergenic regions rather than within the ORFs, and (ii) a decreasing gradient of large hairpins from the origin towards the ter C end of chromosomal DNA replication. Given the increasing biological relevance of secondary DNA structures, these findings should facilitate further studies on the evolution, dynamics and expression of the genetic information stored in bacterial genomes.