Translation efficiency covariation identifies conserved coordination patterns across cell types.

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Molecular Biology
• Systems Biology

Background:

• Gene expression coordination is well-studied at the RNA level, aiding regulatory network discovery.
• Coordination of gene expression at the translational level remains largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if gene expression coordination extends to the translational level.
• To introduce and define translation efficiency covariation (TEC) as a measure of coordinated translation.
• To explore the conservation and functional implications of TEC in mammals.

Main Methods:

• Uniform analysis of 3,819 ribosome profiling datasets from human and mouse tissues/cell lines.
• Development and application of the TEC metric to identify coordinated translation patterns.
• Comparison of TEC with RNA and protein co-expression patterns.

Main Results:

• Identified TEC as a conserved organizing principle in mammalian transcriptomes.
• TEC uncovers gene functions not apparent from RNA or protein co-expression.
• Physically interacting proteins show enriched positive covariation at both translational and transcriptional levels.
• Nominated candidate mechanisms driving shared translation regulation patterns.

Conclusions:

• Translation efficiency covariation (TEC) is a conserved feature of mammalian gene expression.
• TEC provides a novel framework for understanding gene function and regulation.
• TEC has potential as a predictive marker and for applications in synthetic biology.