Nucleotide composition-based prediction of gene expression efficacy

A correlation between efficacy of gene expression and nucleotide compositio n of its protein-coding sequences was studied. It was found that measures b ased exclusively on codon frequencies are analogous to codon adaptation ind ex [1] and do not adequately reveal this correlation. A more general measur e is suggested, i.e., elongation efficacy index, which takes into account b oth the codon frequencies and the level of local mRNA complementarity. Util ization of this measure facilitated adequate recognition of highly expresse d genes in 18 unicellular organisms, i.e., 14 eubacteria, three archaebacte ria, and yeast.