Genome Biology

official impact factor 6.89
Search for
Advanced search
Genome Biology
Tools
Share this article

This article has not been peer reviewed.

Deposited research article

Conserved protein domains are maintained in an average ratio to proteome size

Joel A Malek* and Daniel H Haft

Author Affiliations

The Institute for Genomic Research, 9712 Medical Center Dr., Rockville, MD 20850, USA

For all author emails, please log on.

Genome Biology 2001, 2:preprint0004-preprint0004.16 doi:10.1186/gb-2001-2-5-preprint0004


This was the first version of this article to be made available publicly. A peer-reviewed and modified version is now available in full at http://genomebiology.com/2001/2/9/research/0039/

Published: 9 April 2001

Abstract

Background

Conserved domains (CD) in proteins play a crucial role in protein interactions, DNA binding, enzyme activity, and other important cellular processes. We proposed to study ratios of genes containing these domains to ratios of proteome size of different eukaryotes.

Results

We have calculated average occurrences of conserved domains in each of 5 eukaryote genomes. Ratios between two genomes of genes containing a conserved domain, on average, reflected the ratio of the predicted total genes between the two genomes. Using two different databases of conserved domains, these ratios have been verified.

Conclusions

Conserved domains are maintained in an averaged ratio to proteome size across the 5 sequenced eukaryotic genomes. This finding raises the question whether this ratio is maintained out of functional constraints, or other unknown reasons. The universality of the ratio in the 5 eukaryotic genomes attests to its potential importance.