CpG deficiency, dinucleotide distributions and nucleosome positioning.

The dinucleotide CpG is deficient in (A + T)-rich regions of vertebrate DNA in both coding and non-coding sequences and there is a corresponding increase above expectation in the occurrence of TpG and CpA. By contrast in (G + C)-rich regions no deficiency of CpG is found. Such (G + C)-rich sequences, containing the expected number of CpG dinucleotides, alternate along the genome with (A + T)-rich sequences which have a lower than expected CpG content. The G + C content of vertebrate DNA can oscillate with a period of 150-200 bp and this may be a factor in positioning nucleosomes. The role of mutagenesis in loss of CpG and increase of A + T, particularly in non-coding regions, is discussed.