Measuring the Coding Potential of Genomic Sequences Througha Combination of Triplet Occurrence Patterns and RNY Preference

The distribution of n-tuplet frequencies is shown to strongly correlate with functionality when examining a genomic sequence in a reading-frame specific manner. The approach described herein applies a coarse-graining procedure, which is able to reveal aspects of triplet usage that are related to protein coding, while at the same time remaining species independent, based on a simple summation of suitable triplet occurrences measures. These quantities are ratios of simple frequencies to suitable mononucleotide-frequency products promoting the incidence of the RNY motif, preferred in the most widely used codons. A significant distinction of coding and noncoding sequences is achieved.Reviewing Editor: Dr. Massimo Di Giulio