Evolution of the translation machinery in prokaryotes and structural studies on DNA tandem repeats

Critical processes involved in maintaining life are replication of the genetic material stored in DNA, transcription of DNA to mRNA and translation of the mRNA to synthesize proteins. The dissertation uses computational and experimental approaches to address intriguing questions regarding each one of these processes. The genomic neighborhood of all bacterial ribosomal protein genes and additional translation related proteins were examined in 93 bacterial species. A scoring method was developed to rank the gene clusters according to their conservation. The gene neighborhood of four gene clusters trmD, S6-S18-L9, S15-pnp, S2-EfTs revealed unique lineage specific variations among the species analyzed. A huge cluster involving 7 r-protein operons and 7 individual genes, were seen in selected low G+C content Gram positive groups including the Bacilli, Clostridia and others.;Secondary structures formed by repeated regions inside eukaryotic genomes are known to hinder DNA replication and subsequently cause neurodegenerative diseases. Thermal melting study was performed understand the relation between the primary sequence of DNA and its potential to form stable structures. Towards this end a parallel duplex formed by (GACC)3 repeat found in mouse genome was characterized by NMR.