Codon influence on protein expression in E. coli correlates with mRNA levels.

ABSTRACT: Degeneracy in the genetic code, which enables a single protein to be encoded by a multitude of synonymous gene sequences, has an important role in regulating protein expression, but substantial uncertainty exists concerning the details of this phenomenon. Here we analyse the sequence features influencing protein expression levels in 6,348 experiments using bacteriophage T7 polymerase to synthesize messenger RNA in Escherichia coli. Logistic regression yields a new codon-influence metric that correlates only weakly with genomic codon-usage frequency, but strongly with global physiological protein concentrations and also mRNA concentrations and lifetimes in vivo. Overall, the codon content influences protein expression more strongly than mRNA-folding parameters, although the latter dominate

SUBMITTER: Boel G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5054687 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature