TY - JOUR T1 - Protein yield is tunable by synonymous codon changes of translation initiation sites JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/726752 SP - 726752 AU - Bikash K. Bhandari AU - Chun Shen Lim AU - Daniela M. Remus AU - Augustine Chen AU - Craig van Dolleweerd AU - Paul P. Gardner Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/02/22/726752.abstract N2 - Recombinant protein production is a key process in generating proteins of interest in the pharmaceutical industry and biomedical research. However, about 50% of recombinant proteins fail to be expressed in a variety of host cells. To address this problem, we modified up to the first nine codons of messenger RNAs with synonymous substitutions and showed that protein levels can be tuned. These modifications alter the ‘accessibility’ of translation initiation sites. We also reveal the dynamics between accessibility, gene expression, and turnovers using a coarse-grained simulation.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -