EVOLUTION OF SINGLE AMINO ACID REPEATS IN EUKARYOTIC SPECIES

Abstract

A common feature of eukaryotic genomes is the abundance of simple sequences. Single amino acid repeats, which is one kind of simple sequences, are characterized by tandem recurrence of only one amino acid within the proteins and are broadly found among almost all genomes of eukaryotic species. Combined with its abundance, the lack of deterministic function of SAAR makes it intriguing to study on its evolution. In this study, 34 eukaryotic genomes are used and an abundance of SAARs on X/Z chromosomes is observed. Also, amino acid composition and codon usage bias is different between SAARs and non-repetitive regions. We also observe that the conserved number of SAARs is linearly correlated with logarithm of divergence time.