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A low rate of nucleotide changes in Escherichia coli K‐12 estimated from a comparison of the genome sequences between two different substrains
Author(s) -
Itoh Takeshi,
Okayama Toshitsugu,
Hashimoto Hiroyuki,
Takeda Jun-ichi,
Davis Ronald W.,
Mori Hirotada,
Gojobori Takashi
Publication year - 1999
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/s0014-5793(99)00481-0
Subject(s) - escherichia coli , nucleotide , genome , genetics , biology , chemistry , gene
Two genome sequences of Escherichia coli K‐12 substrains, one partial W3110 and one complete MG1655, have been determined by Japanese and American genome projects, respectively. In order to estimate the rate of nucleotide changes, we directly compared 2 Mb of the nucleotide sequences from these closely‐related E. coli substrains. Given that the two substrains separated about 40 years ago, the rate of nucleotide changes was estimated to be less than 10 −7 per site per year. This rate was supported by a further comparison between partial genome sequences of E. coli and Shigella flexneri .