Talk:GC-content

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I have merged this article with Guanine-cytosine content. Hopefully I managed to do it properly. --Chino 10:34, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] GC content and temperature

The last part of the last sentence of the first paragraph: "[...], and thus GC-content tends to be greater in hyperthermophiles." is not supported by data (see Galtier and Lobry, 1997). I would suggest something like "One may think that having a high G+C content is selectivley advatageous for hyperthermophiles, but this is not the case (Galtier and Lobry, 1997)."

  • Galtier, N. and Lobry, J.R. (1997). "Relationships between genomic G+C content, RNA secondary structure, and optimal growth temperature in prokaryotes". Journal of Molecular Evolution 44: 632-636. 

[edit] Genome is asymmetric

The last sentence of the third paragraph states that "In many prokaryotic organisms the genome is asymmetric: the composition of the strand being continuously replicated (leading strand) and its complementary (lagging strand) show different GC-contents.". This is not true, the GC-content is always the same in the two DNA strands. I think there is a confusion here with the GC-skew and the AT-skew (see Lobry 1996). I think that this sentence should be deleted from the "GC-content" article.

  • Lobry, J.R. (1996). "Asymmetric substitution patterns in the two DNA strands of bacteria". Molecular Biology and Evolution 13: 660-665. 

86.216.213.183 16:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I was reading the article and was confused by this sentence, since the article is about paired GCs. The ext link given in the sentence wasn't too helpful, but the (G-C)/(G+C) formula there made it clear the subject was something else. This link I found is a bit more enlightening, and makes it clear the subject is not the same as GC-content. I've removed the sentence. It would be good to have a separate article about GC-skew. -R. S. Shaw 04:17, 30 September 2006 (UTC)