Ribosome tail ends as "signal detectors" for protein production in prokaryotes

The 16s ribosomal tail has been conjectured to play an important role in the regulation of protein production. In previous work, we generated sequences of 13 base pairs as hypothetical ribosome tail ends for E. coli K-12. We found the actual E. coli ribosome tail to be significantly different from a randomly generated one in the magnitude of the lock and synchronization signals, and the signal to noise ratio. Using a genetic algorithm to search for optimal tails, we found that the actual E. coli ribosome tail end was among the best by these measures. In our current work, we use this method to detect optimal ribosome tails in thirteen other prokaryotic organisms, to test our hypothesis that signal characteristics are good indicators of protein production in prokaryotes. This work also provides theoretical ribosome tails that could be useful in transgenic protein production.