Efficiency of protein synthesis inhibition depends on tRNA and codon compositions
Fig 2
Ultrasensitive dependence of the overall elongation rate on EF-Tu concentration in E. coli.
A) Theoretical predictions for E. coli growing at a specific growth rate of 2.5 h−1 with a physiological EF-Tu concentration of about 250 μM (blue dashed line) [32]. If the EF-Tu concentration is reduced by 15% (orange dashed line), the overall elongation rate strongly decreases by about 50%. When 20% of all EF-Tu molecules are inhibited (red dashed line), a critical EF-Tu concentration is reached, at which protein synthesis is almost completely suppressed. B) Experimental data from van der Meide (Fig. 3 in Ref. [30]), showing an ultrasensitive dependence of the overall elongation rate on EF-Tu for most of the studied E. coli strains. To facilitate comparison, data are rescaled as described in S1 Text and solid lines are drawn as a guide to the eye (no model fitting). Symbols represent different E. coli strains with mutated tufA and/or tufB genes coding for EF-Tu, see Table 2 in Ref. [30].