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Appl. Environ. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/AEM.02768-06
Copyright (c) 2007, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Unusual codon bias in vinyl chloride reductase genes of Dehalococcoides species

Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Statistics, Biological Sciences, and Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5429, USA

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: spormann{at}stanford.edu.

	Abstract

Vinyl chloride reductases (VC-RDase) are the key enzymes for complete microbial reductive dehalogenation of chloroethenes, including the ground water pollutants tetrachloroethene and trichloroethene. Analysis of codon usage of the VC-RDase genes vcrA and bvcA showed that these genes are highly unusual, characterized by a low fraction of G+C at the third position. The third position of codons in VC-RDase genes is biased toward the nucleotide T, even though available Dehalococcoides genome sequences indicate the absence of any tRNAs matching T-ending codons. The comparatively high level of abnormality in codon usage of VC-RDase genes suggests an evolutionary history that is different from most other Dehalococcoides genes.

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