Gaining Insights into the Codon Usage Patterns of TP53 Gene across Eight Mammalian Species

Mazumder, Tarikul Huda; Chakraborty, Supriyo

The study of codon usage bias acquires significance in biology not only in the context of understanding the process of evolution at molecular level but also in designing transgenes for increased expression, discovering new genes [29] based on nucleotide compositional dynamics, detecting lateral gene transfer and for analyzing the functional conservation of gene expression [30] . Codon usage bias may be superimposed on the effect of natural selection. The amount of protein produced from the mRNA transcript may vary significantly since the translational properties of alternate synonymous codons are not equivalent [31] . Several studies have further shown that codon usage bias is associated with highly expressed genes as some codons are used more often than others in the coding sequences [32] . Moreover, literature suggested that a gene can be epitomized not only by the sequence of its amino acid but also by its codon usage patterns shaped by the balance between mutational bias and natural selection [33] . As a consequence of selection pressure within a gene, differentiation in codon bias may arise between species of the same genus.