CODON USAGE AND NUCLEOTIDE COMPOSITION IN COXIELLA-BURNETII

Coxiella burnetii, the causative agent of Q fever, is an obligate intr acellular bacterium. With the development of molecular biology techniq ues, there have been increasing efforts on gene cloning and other gene tic analyses of this organism. In this report, we tabulate the codon u sage (CU) and nucleotide (nt) co-occurrence in C. burnetii, based on a vailable nt sequence data. The average G+C content of the C. burnetii genome is 42.4%, where the G+C content is 42.7% for the chromosome and 38.7% for the plasmid. In comparison to Escherichia coli, there is bi ased CU. Some codons are frequently used in C. burnetii, but rarely us ed in E. coli and vice versa. Plasmid genes prefer A or T at the first or third position of a codon. However, TAA remains the most used stop codon. In the AT-rich DNA of C. burnetii, A or T tend to occur togeth er, forming A or T tracks. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.