Estimating selection on synonymous codon usage from noisy experimental data.

ABSTRACT: A key goal in molecular evolution is to extract mechanistic insights from signatures of selection. A case study is codon usage, where despite many recent advances and hypotheses, two longstanding problems remain: the relative contribution of selection and mutation in determining codon frequencies and the relative contribution of translational speed and accuracy to selection. The relevant targets of selection--the rate of translation and of mistranslation of a codon per unit time in the cell--can only be related to mechanistic properties of the translational apparatus if the number of transcripts per cell is known, requiring use of gene expression measurements. Perhaps surprisingly, different gene-expression data sets yield markedly different estimates of selection. We show that this is lar

SUBMITTER: Wallace EW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3649678 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature