Periodicity in DNA primary structure is defined by secondary structure of the coded protein.

Abstract

A 10.5-base periodicity found earlier is inherent in both eu- and prokaryotic coding nucleotide sequences. In the case of noncoding eukaryotic sequences no periodicity is found, so the 10.5-base oscillation seemingly does not correlate with the nucleosomal organization of DNA. It is shown that the DNA fragments, coding the alpha-helical protein segments, manifest the pronounced 10.5-base periodicity, while those regions of DNA which code the beta-structure have a 6-base oscillation. The repeating pattern of nucleotide sequences can be used for comparison of the DNA segments with low degree of homology.