Functional analysis of ribosomal protein RPL39L

Increasingly many studies reveal how ribosome composition can be tuned to optimally translate the transcriptome of individual cell types. In this study, we investigate the expression pattern, structure within the ribosome, and effect on protein synthesis of the ribosomal protein paralog 39L (RPL39L). With a novel mass spectrometric approach we quantify the expression of RPL39L in human pluripotent cells, cancer cell lines and tissue samples, and in mouse germ cells. We generate RPL39L knock-out mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) lines, perform RNA-seq and Ribo-seq, to demonstrate that RPL39L impacts the dynamics of translation, to support the pluripotency and differentiation, spontaneous and along the germ cell lineage. Our study shows that ribosomal protein paralogs provide switchable modular components that can tune translation to the protein production needs of individual cell types.