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Figure 5 | Genome Biology

Figure 5

From: Identification of attenuation and antitermination regulation in prokaryotes

Figure 5

Genome Size and Regulation. (a) Intergenic sequences of 26 genomes were randomly shuffled, folded and filtered using reported method to obtain putative 'attenuators'. The number of these shuffled and filtered folds per intergenic region were plotted for each genome against the number of intergenic regions. The correlation, if random, should remain constant and independent of genome size. Blue spheres represent proteobacteria and Bacillis species in our survey, beige are archaeabacteria and green the rest. Spheres are in size in proportion to the genome's GC content and GC content is labeled within each sphere. The number of random folds per intergenic region is a function of GC content as would be expected from filtering for folds with poly-U runs. Genomes with known attenuation or antitermination are labeled as is the genome known not to use attenuators with poly-U runs in termination. (b) Intergenic sequences of 22 genomes were folded and filtered for possible attenuators and indication of attenuation or antitermination regulation. The number of these predicted attenuators per intergenic region is compared to the number of intergenic regions in the genome. In contrast to folds of randomly shuffled sequences, the strongest determinate for the frequency of attenuation is genome size (number of intergenic regions and genome size are strongly correlated). Colors and labeling are the same as in 5a.

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