High-resolution profiling reveals coupled transcriptional and translational regulation of transgenes

Abstract

Concentrations of RNAs and proteins provide important determinants of cell fate. Robust gene circuit design requires an understanding of how the combined actions of individual genetic components influence both mRNA and protein levels. Here, we simultaneously measure mRNA and protein levels in single cells using HCR Flow-FISH for a set of commonly used synthetic promoters. We find that promoters generate differences in both the mRNA abundance and the effective translation rate of these transcripts. Stronger promoters not only transcribe more RNA but also show higher effective translation rates. While the strength of the promoter is largely preserved upon genome integration with identical elements, the choice of polyadenylation signal and coding sequence can generate large differences in the profiles of the mRNAs and proteins. We used long-read direct RNA sequencing to characterize full-length mRNA isoforms and observe remarkable uniformity of mRNA isoforms from the transgenic units. Together, our high-resolution profiling of transgenic mRNAs and proteins offers insight into the impact of common synthetic genetic components on transcriptional and translational mechanisms. By developing a novel framework for quantifying expression profiles of transgenes, we have established a system for comparing native and synthetic gene regulation and for building more robust transgenic systems.