Journal of DNA Research

I intend to confirm the use of selection coefficients of dinucleotides whose bases are separated by 0, 1, 2… K nucleotide sites to determine whether a genome is single or double stranded DNA or RNA.The previous studies determined that prokaryotes and eukaryotes have categorically double stranded DNA, but viruses had and intermediate composition of double and single stranded DNA or RNA.These studies refer not to the state of the nucleic acid of viruses in the virion particle but to the state of the viruses along their life cycle.Previous studies used the selective profile that include the distance to (selective) neutrality, the sign and value of selection and the place in the scale of selective values.Now, I use the simple correlation between the selection coefficients of dinucleotides found in each set of separation between both bases of the dinucleotides to determine the stranded conditions of nucleic acids.I examined human, archaea, bacteria and viruses' nucleic acids.Results confirm that Eukaryote and prokaryote nucleic acids are double stranded and viruses are in between double and single stranded nucleic acid.However, the large H. cytomegalovirus (229,000 bp) was detected as a double stranded virus.