Deciphering the meaning of the gene location on the chromosome is one of the basic demands of molecular biology. Here we report a correlation between the position of enzymes on the metabolic pathways and the locality of the genes on the chromosome. We performed a window base search to identify functionally related enzymes coding segments (FRECS) for the Escherichia coli chromosome. Among 52 FRECS identified, 32 (~60%) were related to the known operons. It is also suggested that gene duplication has no connection to the observed correlation.

Keywords: Function and structure / Metabolism / Genome / Chromosome / Operon / Gene duplication