Statistical analysis of the distribution of amino acids in Borrelia burgdorferi genome under different genetic codes

The genetic code is considered to be universal. In order to test if some statistical properties of the coding bacterial genome were due to inherent properties of the genetic code, we compared the autocorrelation function, the scaling properties and the maximum entropy of the distribution of distances of amino acids in sequences obtained by translating protein-coding regions from the genome of Borrelia burgdorferi, under different genetic codes. Overall our results indicate that these properties are very stable to perturbations made by altering the genetic code. We also discuss the evolutionary likely implications of the present results.