An equilibrium model for ribosome competition

Abstract

The number of ribosomes in a cell is considered as limiting, and gene expression is thus largely determined by their cellular concentration. In this work we develop a toy model to study the trade-off between the ribosomal supply and the demand of the translation machinery, dictated by the composition of the transcript pool. Our equilibrium framework is useful to highlight qualitative behaviours and new means of gene expression regulation determined by the fine balance of this trade-off. We also speculate on the possible impact of these mechanisms on cellular physiology.