Hello everyone,
In a study I'll be conducting, I aim to heterologously express a gene derived from Streptomyces in E. coli. I'm wondering whether codon optimization is necessary in this case. While many of the publications I've reviewed didn't apply codon optimization, I'm uncertain about the extent to which this might influence protein yield. I'd greatly appreciate your insights and advice :)
There are many variables that can impact the production of your heterologous protein, with codon bias being just one. The literature should tell you something, but at a minimum, do the transformation and look for a result. First get the protein, then work on the optimization. You'll need a point of reference anyway. You might find that codon bias isn't an issue, but insufficient regulatory proteins for the number of plasmids might be the limiting factor.
It is rare that codon bias will be a major issue for reasonable levels of expression. Possibly if you need really maximal high level expression, but even that is on a case by case situation. For most things you don't need to worry about it.
I presume you are using a standard E. coli expression vector? So long as you are using the normal host for that vector you should be good.
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