Gene expression level shapes the amino acid usages in Prochlorococcus marinus MED4

Prochlorococcus species are the first example of free-living bacteria with reduced genome. Codon and amino acid usages bias of Prochlorococcus marinus MED4 was investigated using all protein coding genes having length greater than or equal to 100 amino acids. Correspondence analysis on relative synonymous codon usage (RSCU) values shows that there is no such influence of translational selection in shaping the codon usage variation among the genes in this organism. However, amino acid usages were markedly different between the highly and lowly expressed genes in this organism and in particular, GC rich amino acids were found to occur significantly higher in highly expressed genes than the lowly expressed genes. Comparative analysis of the homologous genes of Synechococcus sp. WH8102 and Prochlorococcus marinus MED4 shows that amino acids conservation in highly expressed genes is significantly higher than lowly expressed genes. Based on our results we concluded that conservation of GC rich amino acids in the highly expressed genes to its ancestor is the major source of variation in amino acid usages in the organism.