Analysis of codon usage bias in interferon alpha gene of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Abstract

The analysis on codon usage bias of IFN-a gene of giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) may provide a basis for understanding the evolution relationship of giant panda and for selecting appropriate host expression systems to improve the expression of target genes. In this paper, the codon usage bias in the mature IFN-a sequence of giant panda and 15 reference species have been analyzed. The results showed that the synonymous codons with G and C at the third codon position were widely used and the ENC-GC3S plot revealed that the genetic heterogeneity in IFN-a gene was main constrained by mutational bias. Contrastive analysis revealed that there were 40 codons showing distinct usage differences between GpIFN-a and Escherichia coli, 38 codons between GpIFN-a and yeast. and only 30 between GpIFN-a and Homo sapiens. Therefore the Homo expression system may be more suitable for the expression of GpIFN-a genes. © 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH.