Figure 7.
Calculation of the number of novel proteins that can be produced by ambiguous decoding of high CAI mRNAs. (a) Number of novel proteins synthesized by ambiguous CUG decoding of genes with high codon adaptation index (CAI) value in the different physiologic conditions indicated. The CDC3 gene, which contains three CUG codons, was used as an example of a gene with a high CAI value (CAICDC3 = 0.694) for Candida albicans. This set of genes produces approximately 50,000 protein molecules in vivo in yeasts [24]. (b) Table showing the number of different protein molecules that arise from ambiguous CUG decoding of CDC3, following the methodology described in the Materials and methods section. In this case, for 2.9% of CUG ambiguity, of the 50,000 Cdc3p molecules synthesized, 45,691 are wild type whereas 4,306 are novel molecules (8.6%), containing a combination of 1, 2, or 3 leucines at the three CUG positions. The data show that C. albicans proteins are quasi-species [43] and that its proteome has a statistical nature.