TY - JOUR TI - Codon usage bias controls mRNA and protein abundance in trypanosomatids AU - Jeacock, Laura AU - Faria, Joana AU - Horn, David A2 - Soldati-Favre, Dominique VL - 7 PY - 2018 DA - 2018/03/15 SP - e32496 C1 - eLife 2018;7:e32496 DO - 10.7554/eLife.32496 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32496 AB - 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 and uniform across the genome. T. brucei is also a major human and animal protozoal pathogen. Here, an experimental assessment, using synthetic reporter genes, revealed that GC3 codons have a major positive impact on both mRNA and protein abundance. Our estimates of relative expression, based on coding sequences alone (codon usage and sequence length), are within 2-fold of the observed values for the majority of measured cellular mRNAs (n > 7000) and proteins (n > 2000). Our estimates also correspond with expression measures from published transcriptome and proteome datasets from other trypanosomatids. We conclude that codon usage is a key factor affecting global relative mRNA and protein expression in trypanosomatids and that relative abundance can be effectively estimated using only protein coding sequences. KW - Leishmania KW - post-transcription KW - synonymous KW - translation KW - Trypanosoma KW - brucei JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -