aa-tRNA competition is crucial for the effective translation efficiency

TL;DR

This study uses a stochastic simulation model to analyze how aa-tRNA competition influences translation efficiency, elongation time, and accuracy, highlighting the importance of ribosome availability and tRNA dynamics in protein synthesis.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed kinetic model incorporating RNA sequences, ribosome dynamics, and tRNA competition, revealing their roles in translation efficiency and accuracy.

Findings

Translation efficiency limited by ribosome number and initiation

Elongation time follows a log-normal distribution influenced by codon saturation

Translation accuracy decreases exponentially with sequence length

Abstract

Translation is a central biological process by which proteins are synthesized from genetic information contained within mRNAs. Here we study the kinetics of translation at molecular level through a stochastic simulation model. The model explicitly include RNA sequences, ribosome dynamics, tRNA pool and biochemical reactions in the translation elongation. The results show that the translation efficiency is mainly limited by the available ribosome number, translation initiation and the translation elongation time. The elongation time is log-normal distribution with mean and variance determined by both the codon saturation and the process of aa-tRNA selection at each codon binding. Moreover, our simulations show that the translation accuracy exponentially decreases with the sequence length. These results suggest that aa-tRNA competition is crucial for both translation elongation, translation efficiency and the accuracy, which in turn determined the effective protein production rate of correct proteins. Our results improve the dynamical equation of protein production with a delay differential equation which is dependent on sequence informations through both the effective production rate and the distribution of elongation time.