Golding G B, Strobeck C
J Mol Evol. 1982;18(6):379-86. doi: 10.1007/BF01840886.
A method is shown to determine the expected pattern of codon use for any given set of mutation rates between nucleotides and any set of fitnesses for the codons. If it is assumed that mutations to stop codons are lethal then those codons which can mutate in one step to a stop codon tend to be used less frequently. This tendency is however, a very small one and is not likely to be observable within a single gene. Nor is it necessarily a general tendency. For example, the leucine pretermination codons may be used preferentially when mutations to proline are deleterious. It is shown that different mutation rates (eg: transitions occurring more frequently than transversions) may have as large an effect on codon usage as would strong selection for particular codons. For the model presented, an increase in the rate of transitions strongly decreases the expected frequency of UGG and CRR codons. Other codes are moderately affected by such a change in the mutation rates. Many other models can be examined using this method.
本文展示了一种方法，可用于确定在任意给定的核苷酸间突变率集合以及任意密码子适应性集合情况下的密码子使用预期模式。如果假设突变为终止密码子是致死的，那么那些可一步突变为终止密码子的密码子往往使用频率较低。然而，这种趋势非常小，在单个基因内不太可能被观察到。它也不一定是普遍趋势。例如，当突变为脯氨酸有害时，亮氨酸提前终止密码子可能会被优先使用。研究表明，不同的突变率（例如：转换比颠换更频繁发生）对密码子使用的影响可能与对特定密码子的强烈选择一样大。对于所提出的模型，转换率的增加会强烈降低UGG和CRR密码子的预期频率。其他密码子受突变率这种变化的影响适中。使用此方法可以研究许多其他模型。
