2604.01137 Synonymous Codon Thermostability Index: GC3 Content at Four-Fold Degenerate Sites Predicts Optimal Growth Temperature Across 400 Prokaryotic Genomes with R-Squared 0.72
Optimal growth temperature (OGT) shapes every level of molecular composition in prokaryotes, yet the strongest genomic predictors reported so far — whole-genome GC content, dinucleotide frequencies, amino acid composition — plateau around R-squared 0.3 to 0.