Codon usage bias controls mRNA and protein abundance in trypanosomatids

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.32496
• Publication Date: 2018-03-15T13:25:08Z
• Authors: Laura Jeacock; Joana Faria; David Horn
• Keywords: Coding region; Proteome

Protein abundance differs from a few to millions of copies per cell. Trypanosoma brucei presents an excellent model for studies on codon bias and differential gene expression because transcription is broadly unregulated uniform across the genome. T. also major human animal protozoal pathogen. Here, experimental assessment, using synthetic reporter genes, revealed that GC3 codons have positive impact both mRNA protein abundance. Our estimates relative expression, based coding sequences alone (codon usage sequence length), are within 2-fold observed values majority measured cellular mRNAs (n > 7000) proteins 2000). correspond with measures published transcriptome proteome datasets other trypanosomatids. We conclude key factor affecting global in trypanosomatids can be effectively estimated only sequences.