Alternative transcription start site selection leads to large differences in translation activity in yeast

Some yeast genes have very heterogeneous 5′ UTRs. (A) Histogram of yeast genes' relative translation efficiencies (TE) as determined by Ingolia et al. (2009). TEs for the 96 genes selected for study are indicated below. (B) 5′ UTR lengths as determined by 5′ RACE for 96 genes. (C) Comparison of 5′ RACE results with 5′ UTR boundaries from published cDNAs. Each dot represents the median 5′ UTR length determined for one gene. A total of 27 out of 96 genes were represented by a single cDNA in Miura et al. (2006) and 32 genes were not represented. r_s indicates the Spearman rank correlation of 5′ UTR lengths from 5′ RACE clones and cDNAs.