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Codon Bias And Mrna Folding Stability: Two Natural Controls Of Protein Expression Dynamics, Anastacia Wienecke

WWU Graduate School Collection

Introduction: Connections between genetic variation and trait variation are complex and dynamic; the critical link between the two is gene expression variation. Though proteins are the functional products of most genes, the relative ease and throughput level of various measurement approaches has meant that gene expression is typically studied via transcript-level rather than protein-level techniques. Recent studies however, suggest that certain genetic factors act post-transcriptionally to modify rates of protein synthesis, making transcript levels imperfect indicators of protein levels. A gene’s bias for ‘optimal’ codons (i.e., its codon bias) and a gene’s mRNA folding stability appear to be two such …