Bulmer M
Department of Statistics, Oxford, UK.
Nucleic Acids Res. 1989 Mar 11;17(5):1839-43. doi: 10.1093/nar/17.5.1839.
MS2 is an RNA bacteriophage (3569 bases). The secondary structure of the RNA has been determined, and is known to play an important role in regulating translation. Paired regions of the genome have a higher G+C content than unpaired regions. It has been suggested that this reflects selection for high G+C content to encourage pairing, but a re-analysis of the data together with computer simulation suggest that it is an automatic consequence in any RNA sequence of the way it folds up to minimise its free energy. It has also been suggested that the three registers in which pairing can occur in a coding region are used differentially to optimise the use of the redundancy of the genetic code, but re-analysis of the data shows only weak statistical support for this hypothesis.
MS2是一种RNA噬菌体(3569个碱基)。其RNA的二级结构已被确定,并且已知在调节翻译过程中发挥重要作用。基因组的配对区域比未配对区域具有更高的G+C含量。有人认为,这反映了对高G+C含量的选择以促进配对,但对数据的重新分析以及计算机模拟表明,这是任何RNA序列在折叠以最小化其自由能的方式下的自动结果。也有人提出,编码区域中可以发生配对的三个读码框被不同地使用,以优化遗传密码冗余的利用,但对数据的重新分析仅显示对这一假设的微弱统计支持。