Strand inequality in terms of expression-dependent synonymous single-nucleotide polymorphism in the Escherichia coli chromosome

In Escherichia coli across 157 strains, C[->]T and G[->]A synonymous transitions show the strongest strand inequality between leading and lagging strands, modulated by gene expression.

• Why it matters: Replication is known to drive mutations, but a clear, mutation-specific link to replication- and/or expression-dependent effects on strand bias has been difficult to demonstrate.
• What they did: The study compared synonymous SNP frequencies in 2091 coding sequences on the leading (LeS) and lagging (LaS) strands, using codon adaptation index (CAI) and also protein-expression-based CDS to test expression dependence.
• The result: The T[->]C vs A[->]G inequality is gene-expression dependent, and transcription-induced mutagenesis is supported as a contributor to strand inequality in the E. coli chromosome.

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