Tailoring Codon Usage to the Underlying Biology for Protein Expression Optimization

Abstract

For heterologous gene expression, codon optimization is required to enhance the quality and quantity of the protein product. Recently, we introduced the software tool OCTOPOS. This sequence optimizer combines a detailed mechanistic mathematical modeling of in vivo protein synthesis with a state-of-the-art machine learning algorithm to find the sequence that best serves a user's needs. Here, we briefly describe the algorithm and its implementation as well as its application in practice using OCTOPOS.

Keywords: Codon optimization; Heterologous gene expression; OCTOPOS; Protein synthesis; mRNA translation.