EMBO Practical Course — Measuring translational dynamics by ribosome profiling

Regulation of translation is key in the control of gene expression, playing a critical role in many biological and pathophysiological settings. In the last decade, methodological advances have provided comprehensive insights into cellular transcriptomes and proteomes, however, the systems-wide analysis of translation remained an unsolved experimental challenge. The advent of ‘ribosome-profiling’ provided the methodological basis for comprehensive transcriptome-wide analyses of translation at sub-codon resolution by the precise and high-throughput determination of ribosomal positions on mRNA. Its application in a variety of organisms yielded novel insights into protein synthesis and its dynamic regulation, significantly advancing our understanding of the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression.