Degrees of divergence in the E. coli genome from correlations between dinucleotide, trinucleotide and codon frequencies.

Oligonucleotide and codon frequencies have been determined in published sequences of E. coli DNA totaling 103,100bp with 18,459 reading frame trinucleotides; corresponding to 2.5% of the total genome. Dinucleotide frequencies are in excellent agreement with those determined by nearest neighbor chemical analysis, indicating the computer count of a limited sampling to be a good representation of the overall frequencies in total genomic DNA. The distinctive nonrandom codon pattern is found to be uniformly distributed and contributes to a distinctive nonrandom oligonucleotide pattern; enabling correlations between frequency levels to be extended beyond reading frame sequences. Correlation analysis indicates a surprisingly high degree of correlation everywhere in the genome. Coefficients of correlation between oligonucleotide frequencies overall and those in specific segments vary as follows: primary strands of individual coding sequences greater than 0.9 greater than lambda DNA greater than noncoding, non-RNA greater than phi X174 DNA greater than complementary strands greater than RNA genes congruent to 0.6 greater than transposon-insertion elements greater than T7DNA much greater than eukaryotic sequences congruent to 0. It is concluded that this high degree of oligonucleotide and codon correspondence in E. coli reflects the widespread distribution of remnants of an early and slowly changing codon pattern that has been continually dispersed by duplication-divergence processes, leading to the present genome.