DISTRIBUTION OF SEQUENCE-DEPENDENT CURVATURE IN GENOMIC DNA-SEQUENCES

The distribution of inherent, sequence-dependent curvature,vas calcula ted for a number of prokaryotic (M. genitalium, H. influenzae, M. jann aschii, viral (adenovirus 2, equine herpes virus 1), phage (M13, lambd a), eukaryotic (S, cerevisiae) and mitochondrial genomes as well as E. coli and human genomic fragments, The genomic averages are in the ran ge of 6-8 degrees/helical turn and only about 20% of DNA is curved les s than 3 degrees/helical turn, The prokaryotes and phages appear to ha ve a consistently higher frequency of curved DNA in their genomes than the other genomes tested, Long, highly curved segments, similar to ar tificially designed curved DNA, are apparently absent from the genomes , Short, curved segments, differing in G+C content may provide environ mentally modulated conformational signals for gene regulation, A WWW-s erver was constructed for the prediction of curved sites from DNA sequ ences [http://icgeb.trieste.it/dna/curve_it.html/].. (C) 1997 Federati on of European Biochemical Societies.