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Compound microsatellites in complete Escherichia coli genomes
Author(s) -
Chen Ming,
Zeng Guangming,
Tan Zhongyang,
Jiang Min,
Zhang Jiachao,
Zhang Chang,
Lu Lunhui,
Lin Yuzhen,
Peng Jun
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/j.febslet.2011.03.005
Subject(s) - microsatellite , genome , escherichia coli , biology , genetics , bacterial genome size , evolutionary biology , computational biology , gene , allele
Compound microsatellites consisting of two or more repeats in close proximity have been found in eukaryotic genomes. So far such compound microsatellites have not been investigated in any prokaryotic genomes. We have therefore examined compound microsatellites in 22 complete genomes of Escherichia coli, which is one of the ideal model organisms to analyze the nature and evolution of prokaryotic compound microsatellites. Our results indicated that about 1.75–2.85% of all microsatellites could be accounted as compound microsatellites with very low complexity, and most compound microsatellites were composed of very different motifs. Compound microsatellites were significantly overrepresented in all surveyed genomes. These results were dramatically different from those in eukaryotes. We discussed the possible reasons for the observed divergence.