On the Ribosomal Density that Maximizes Protein Translation Rate

Abstract

During mRNA translation, several ribosomes attach to the same mRNA molecule simultaneously translating it into a protein. This pipelining increases the protein production rate. A natural and important question is what ribosomal density maximizes the protein production rate. Using mathematical models of ribosome flow along both a linear and a circular mRNA molecule we prove that typically the steady-state production rate is maximized when the ribosomal density is one half of the maximal possible density. We discuss the implications of our results to endogenous genes under natural cellular conditions and also to synthetic biology.

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• A Deterministic Mathematical Model for Bidirectional Excluded Flow with Langmuir Kinetics
• A Deterministic Model for One-Dimensional Excluded Flow with Local Interactions
• Persistence and stability of generalized ribosome flow models with time-varying transition rates
• Dynamical Systems with a Cyclic Sign Variation Diminishing Property
• Approximating the Frequency Response of Contractive Systems
• Ribosome Flow Model with Extended Objects
• Controllability analysis and control synthesis for the ribosome flow model