The impact of growth rate on protein-mRNA ratios in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Our understanding of bacterial physiology during human infection is limited by the difficulty in assessing bacterial function in the infection site. Recent studies have begun to address this question by quantifying bacterial mRNA levels in human-derived samples using transcriptomics. One challenge for these studies is the poor predictivity of mRNA for protein levels for some genes. Here, we used carefully controlled chemostat experiments to examine the relationship between mRNA and protein levels across four growth rates in the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Our results provide new insights into mRNA-protein correlations and tools to enhance understanding of bacterial physiology from transcriptome data.