Unusually biased nucleotide sequences on sense strands of Flavobacterium sp. genes produce nonstop frames on the corresponding antisense strands.

From investigation of eight Flavobacterium sp. genes encoding enzyme proteins, it was found that six genes had nonstop frames (NSFs) on the antisense strands, and base sequences of the genes are mainly composed of repeating triplet sequence(s), 5'-GNC-3' (where G and C are guanine and cytosine, and N is either of the four bases), in the reading frames. Thus, we concluded that the biased nucleotide sequences on the sense strands produce NSFs on the corresponding antisense strands. Furthermore, from the precise alignments of both nucleotide and amino acid sequences of two related Flavobacterium sp. genes, nyIB and nyIB', it was found that base replacements might have occurred symmetrically in the codons. That is, transversions between G and C were observed at high frequencies at the first and third positions of codons, but not at the second positions. At the first position, AG base transitions were observed much more than similar CT transitions, whereas CT transitions were found at the third positions at a relatively high frequency. These suggest that symmetrical base replacements in codons might be the main contribution to evolution in Flavobacterium sp. genes.