Frequencies of codons in histones, tubulins and fibrinogen: bias due to interference between transcription signals and protein function.

The distribution of codons was studied in 65 proteins: 48 histones, 14 tubulins, and three fibrinogens, With the methodology used, (1) we confirmed that the preterminator state of a codon has no detectable effect on codon bias. (2) The well-known effect of CG suppression was visible. We also found that (3) some codons which are very rare, are equal to parts of known transcription signals. Thus, we advanced that to avoid signal interference, the use of these codons is suppressed when a synonymous codon is available. In addition we found that in the whole series of codons, transcription signals are less frequent than in a random sequence of equal composition. Finally we observed (4) that tryptophan is absent in histones. This absence was related not to the TGG codon itself, but to characteristics of the amino acid. We conclude that the functional constraints of a protein can influence, at least for synonymous codon usage, the evolution of its own coding sequence.