Analysis of the codon usage pattern in the Vibrio cholerae genome.

The codon usage in the Vibrio cholerae genome is analyzed in this paper. Although there are much more genes on the chromosome 1 than on chromosome 2, the codon usage patterns of genes on the two chromosomes are quite similar, indicating that the two chromosomes may have coexisted in the same cell for a very long history. Unlike the base frequency pattern observed in other genomes, the G+C content at the third codon position of the V. cholerae genome varies in a rather small interval. The most notable feature of codon usage of V. cholerae genome is that there is a fraction of genes show significant bias in base choice at the second codon position. The 2,006 known genes can be classified into two clusters according to the base frequencies at this position. The smaller cluster contains 227 genes, most of which code for proteins involved in transport and binding functions. The encoding products of these genes have significant bias in amino acids composition as compared with other genes. The codon usage patterns for the 1,836 function unknown ORFs are also analyzed, which is useful to study their functions.