De Novo Origination of Bacillus subtilis 168 Promoters from Random Sequences.

Citation: Ardhanari-Shanmugam, KD, Shahrukh, K, B, V, Woo, JH, Thong-Ek, C, Usman, S, Kwek, BZN, Chua, JW, Ling, MHT. 2019. De Novo Origination of Bacillus subtilis 168 Promoters from Random Sequences. Acta Scientific Microbiology 2(11): 07-10.

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How the first promoters may have originated is of evolutionary curiosity. Several studies have shown that new promoters arise by copying over an existing promoter sequence. Although de novo origination of promoters has also been suggested, there has been limited evidence. Hence, we investigate the possibility of de novo origination of promoters in this study using the model organism Bacillus subtilis 168. 10,000 random sequences were generated and alignment to known promoter sequences from B. subtilis 168 were used to assess their probability of being putative promoters. Results showed that 380 out of 10,000 random sequences have ≥97% probability. In silico evolution was performed to test the possibility of promoter selection using selective pressure and our simulation results suggest that the functionality of a random sequence may increase overtime. Therefore, de novo origination of promoters from random sequences is possible.