Protein degradation sets the fraction of active ribosomes at vanishing growth.
PLoS Comput Biol
; 18(5): e1010059, 2022 05.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-35500024
ABSTRACT
Growing cells adopt common basic strategies to achieve optimal resource allocation under limited resource availability. Our current understanding of such "growth laws" neglects degradation, assuming that it occurs slowly compared to the cell cycle duration. Here we argue that this assumption cannot hold at slow growth, leading to important consequences. We propose a simple framework showing that at slow growth protein degradation is balanced by a fraction of "maintenance" ribosomes. Consequently, active ribosomes do not drop to zero at vanishing growth, but as growth rate diminishes, an increasing fraction of active ribosomes performs maintenance. Through a detailed analysis of compiled data, we show that the predictions of this model agree with data from E. coli and S. cerevisiae. Intriguingly, we also find that protein degradation increases at slow growth, which we interpret as a consequence of active waste management and/or recycling. Our results highlight protein turnover as an underrated factor for our understanding of growth laws across kingdoms.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
/
Escherichia coli
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
PLoS Comput Biol
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA
/
INFORMATICA MEDICA
Year:
2022
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Italy
Publication country:
EEUU
/
ESTADOS UNIDOS
/
ESTADOS UNIDOS DA AMERICA
/
EUA
/
UNITED STATES
/
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
/
US
/
USA