Associated Team HELIX-USP

In all three biological worlds (eukaryotes, prokaryotes, archea) it appears that neighbor sequences (genes or non coding sequences) are more similar than random ones. These similarities are very diverse and can involve base frequencies, transcription direction, expressivity, etc. An important evolutionary question is "what are the mechanisms that create and maintain such regional similarities?" As very often, the debate between natural selection and mechanistic effects of genome functioning appears and some relevant mathematical analysis from the lab are presented.