Journal
RNA BIOLOGY
Volume 15, Issue 1, Pages 81-94Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC
DOI: 10.1080/15476286.2017.1384118
Keywords
Transcription elongation; transcript evolution; RNA polymerase; codon-usage bias
Categories
Funding
- Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics at Tel-Aviv University
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The two major steps of gene expression are transcription and translation. While hundreds of studies regarding the effect of sequence features on the translation elongation process have been published, very few connect sequence features to the transcription elongation rate. We suggest, for the first time, that short transcript sub-sequences have a typical effect on RNA polymerase (RNAP) speed: we show that nucleotide 5-mers tend to have typical RNAP speed (or transcription rate), which is consistent along different parts of genes and among different groups of genes with high correlation. We also demonstrate that relative RNAP speed correlates with mRNA levels of endogenous and heterologous genes. Furthermore, we show that the estimated transcription and translation elongation rates correlate in endogenous genes. Finally, we demonstrate that our results are consistent for different high resolution experimental measurements of RNAP densities. These results suggest for the first time that transcription elongation is partly encoded in the transcript, affected by the codon-usage, and optimized by evolution with a significant effect on gene expression and organismal fitness.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available