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PMID: 22479199 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Balanced codon usage optimizes eukaryotic translational efficiency.

PLoS genetics ·Vol. 8 ·No. 3 ·2012-00-00 ·Pages e1002603

Qian W, Yang JR, Pearson NM, Maclean C, Zhang J

Abstract

Cellular efficiency in protein translation is an important fitness determinant in rapidly growing organisms. It is widely believed that synonymous codons are translated with unequal speeds and that translational efficiency is maximized by the exclusive use of rapidly translated codons. Here we estimate the in vivo translational speeds of all sense codons from the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Surprisingly, preferentially used codons are not translated faster than unpreferred ones. We hypothesize that this phenomenon is a result of codon usage in proportion to cognate tRNA concentrations, the optimal strategy in enhancing translational efficiency under tRNA shortage. Our predicted codon-tRNA balance is indeed observed from all model eukaryotes examined, and its impact on translational efficiency is further validated experimentally. Our study reveals a previously unsuspected mechanism by which unequal codon usage increases translational efficiency, demonstrates widespread natural selection for translational efficiency, and offers new strategies to improve synthetic biology.

MeSH Terms
Amino Acids/genetics Animals Arabidopsis/genetics Codon/genetics Escherichia coli/genetics Evolution, Molecular Humans Models, Theoretical Protein Biosynthesis RNA, Transfer/genetics Saccharomyces cerevisiae/genetics Synthetic Biology Transcriptome
Chemicals
Amino Acids Codon RNA, Transfer
Authors & Affiliations
5 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Qian Wenfeng
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
Yang Jian-Rong
Pearson Nathaniel M
Maclean Calum
Zhang Jianzhi
Conflict of Interest

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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Article Info
Journal
PLoS genetics
Abbr.
PLoS Genet
ISSN
1553-7404
DOI
10.1371/journal.pgen.1002603
Published
2012-00-00
Epub
2012-00-29
Pages
e1002603
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
101239074
PMCID
PMC3315465
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1002603 PMC Full Text View journal details
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