Fraction of Open Reading Frames being transcribed at 37°C

Range ~25 % of reading frames
Organism Bacteria Escherichia coli
Reference Landenmark HK, Forgan DH, Cockell CS. An Estimate of the Total DNA in the Biosphere. PLoS Biol. 2015 Jun 11 13(6):e1002168. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002168. p.6/10 top paragraphPubMed ID26066900
Primary Source Richmond CS, Glasner JD, Mau R, Jin H, Blattner FR. Genome-wide expression profiling in Escherichia coli K-12. Nucleic Acids Res 1999 27: 3821–3835.PubMed ID10481021
Comments p.6/10 top paragraph:"It is estimated that at 37°C, about 25% of Open Reading Frames in Escherichia coli are being transcribed [primary source], but this is in a metabolically active population. In the natural environment, the percentage of DNA being transcribed is likely to be much less. Nevertheless, it is clear that even if the total DNA in the biosphere being transcribed at any given time was orders of magnitude less, the biosphere has many orders of magnitude more computational power than the fastest electronic computers yet built [ref 4]."
Entered by Uri M
ID 111605