Heterologous gene expression is a process to express a gene in a non-native host. The goal of my Ph. D. study is to improve heterologous gene expression level by redesigning nucleotide sequence.

Given an amino acid sequence, selection for translation efficiency has shaped up a non-random alphabetic spelling of a nucleotide sequence. For example, highly expressed genes only prefer a small subset of synonymous codons in their coding sequences. And interestingly, the codon preference varies from genome to genome. The variation in coding strategies across genomes may cause difficulty in expressing a foreign gene that is not adapted to the host. We may overcome this problem by matching up the pattern of a gene of interest to that of naturally highly expressed genes in the host. In other words, we may redesign the nucleotide sequence of a foreign gene to make it adapt to the host background. My research proposes to develop software to facilitate this redesign process.