Patterns of synonymous codon usage bias in chloroplast genomes of seed plants

Abstract

Codon usage in chloroplast genome of six seed plants (Arabidopsis thaliana, Populus alba, Zea mays, Triticum aestivum, Pinus koraiensis and Cycas taitungensis) was analyzed to find general patterns of codon usage in chloroplast genomes of seed plants. The results show that chloroplast genomes of the six seed plants had similar codon usage patterns, with a strong bias towards a high representation of NNA and NNT codons. In chloroplast genomes of the six seed plants, the effective number of codons (ENC) for most genes was similar to that of the expected ENC based on the GC content at the third codon position, but several genes with low ENC values were laying below the expected curve. All of these data indicate that codon usage was dominated by a mutational bias in chloroplast genomes of seed plants and that selection appeared to be limited to a subset of genes and to only subtly affect codon usage. Meantime, four, six, eight, nine, ten and 12 codons were defined as the optimal codons in chloroplast genomes of the six seed plants.