초록 |
Coupled transcription and translation processes in bacteria cause indiscriminate translation of intact and truncated mRNAs, inevitably generating non-functional polypeptides. We devised a synthetic protein quality control (ProQC) system that enables translation only when both ends of mRNAs are present and followed by circularization based on sequence-specific RNA–RNA hybridization. We demonstrate that the ProQC system dramatically improved the fraction of full-length proteins among all synthesized polypeptides by selectively translating intact mRNA and reducing abortive translation. As a result, full-length protein synthesis increased up to 2.5-fold without changing the transcription or translation efficiency. We applied the ProQC system for metabolite production by ensuring full-length expression of enzymes in biosynthetic pathways, resulting in 1.6- to 2.3-fold greater production. We believe our ProQC system can be universally applied for protein production and metabolic pathways. |