Accessibility of the Shine-Dalgarno Sequence Dictates N-Terminal Codon Bias in E. coli (Molecular Cell)

Bacterial genes tend to have more rare codons in the N terminus. Bhattacharyya et al. show that synonymous substitutions in the N terminus sequester the ribosome binding site and prevent translation initiation, thereby affecting both mRNA and protein levels. Such effects strongly depend on the transcribing RNA polymerase.