Traffic of interacting ribosomes on mRNA during protein synthesis: effects of chemo-mechanics of individual ribosomes

摘要

Many {\it ribosomes} simultaneously move on the same messenger RNA (mRNA),each synthesizing separately a copy of the same protein. In contrast to theearlier models, here {\it we develop a ``unified'' theoretical model} that notonly incorporates the {\it mutual exclusions} of the interacting ribosomes, butalso describes explicitly the mechano-chemistry of each of these macromolecularmachines during protein synthesis. Using analytical and numerical techniques ofnon-equilibrium statistical mechanics, we analyze the rates of proteinsynthesis and the spatio-temporal organization of the ribosomes in this model.We also predict how these properties would change with the changes in the ratesof the various chemo-mechanical processes in each ribosome. Finally, weillustrate the power of this model by making experimentally testablepredictions on the rates of protein synthesis and the density profiles of theribosomes on some mRNAs in {\it E-coli}.